It All Started With Acapella
by ultrafreakyfangirl
Summary: An Acapella Boy and an Acapella Girl meet, fall in love and have aca-children. Just like in the fairy tales, it's inevitable. Jeca one-shots.
1. Chapter 1

**_What Was and What Could Have Been _**

**_Author's Note: The timeline of this particular (lengthy, I apologize) one-shot is six years after Pitch Perfect 3. This one is also not completely plot-driven and more of an introduction of sorts, to their family and moments within their life together - as small or as big as they are, mostly through Beca's memory and some as she's living it, present day. It'll make more sense as you read it, I promise. :) If I get an actual readership I may write more miscellaneous, unconnected, one-shots of their life together, as adults. I love these two, they're my favorite couple out of the franchise (and I was so upset about the whole thing in the third movie). Anyways, read, review, let me know if you like it! :)_**

* * *

 ** _What Was and What Could Have Been_**

Their house was quiet this morning, Beca had noticed, looking around at the unoccupied furniture – the pillows upright and the cushions straight. The hallways were bare too, aside from the few pictures they'd put there.

Their wedding picture was hanging on the wall as if it were a promotional poster for one of the greatest movies ever made in cinematic history. And in her opinion, it _was,_ even if she didn't usually have much of an opinion when it came to movies, or one that was _positive,_ anyway.

In that picture, it was just the two of them, foreheads pressed together with the most solemn of expressions on their faces, underneath a willow tree. _Or was it love?_

Jesse had told her after it was taken, that holding that expression took work, _a lot_ of work, because all he had wanted to do as he waited for that flash, was smile. She remembered this anecdote in particular, because one of her most vivid memories of that day three and a half years ago now, was his mouth pressed aggressively against hers, with a smile so big that she could feel his front teeth grazing her top lip, seduction notwithstanding. _So, yeah, it was love._

The picture right next to that one was another one of their favorite wedding photos. Granted, despite her husband's pleas, they didn't take a million of them because her hatred of getting her picture taken outweighed his request, but still this one was a definite favorite. It was of them making their entrance into the reception.

The train of her dress was flowing behind her, even though it wasn't that long, not as long as most – this was another request made that she'd also gotten, despite Chloe's pout – and her smile was the biggest it has ever been in her entire life. His was, too. Their hands were clasped together, and their opposite ones were making fists in the air; emulating which film? You guessed it. _The Breakfast Club._

 _"Mr. and Mrs. Swanson!"_ the MC – Benji, who was also doubling as Jesse's best man – had called out and everyone had whooped and hollered and laughed at the cheesiness, the _mind blowing_ _cheesiness,_ that Beca was suddenly having an intense love affair with as Jesse whispered _"we did it, Bec. You and me, we did it"_ into her ear. _No,_ _it wasn't love. It was **aca-crazy** love._

As Beca dried the last of the dishes from dinner the night before, her gaze travelled away from that picture and to one on the opposite wall.

It had been taken in Hawaii seven months ago. Their family was on what the locals called the most popular beach on the island of Maui, with the waves crashing timidly behind them, as if afraid to disrupt the serenity of the windless sunshine, and four of them were wearing smiles. The fifth person was sleeping droopily against his mother's chest, a baseball cap casting a shadow over his blissed out face.

Jesse was shirtless and holding a little boy with shaggy dark hair and equally dark eyes, who wore a toothless grin to match the shark on his lake shirt; he also held their daughter, a tiny girl – even for her age - with long, thick hair and those same eyes that were framed by envied lashes, who was smiling broadly, an identical gap in between her teeth.

Her eyes zeroed in on the tautness of her stomach. She didn't have a tough time losing the baby weight after any of her pregnancies, luckily. Despite her smaller frame, it just seemed to fall right off her, literally like meat off a bone. Michael was six months old in that picture, and the twins were smack in the middle of their terrible twos. Their first big family vacation was a little nuts. She sighed, staring down at her belly that was now obnoxiously peeking out of her tight, black shirt.

Maybe she'd change. Into something looser. More color. Of course, Jesse loved her baby bumps – all three and a half of them, he had fussed over, cooed at and touched his hands against her bare skin, every chance he got. Being in public never stopped him. It was embarrassing. With a smirk, she shook her head. Maybe she wouldn't change. She'd stay like this. Embarrassment be damned. _This was love, right? Ugh, no. It was a crock of shit._

"Morning, lover."

Beca looked up to see him coming down that same hallway, finally leaving their bedroom at the end of it. For the first time in a long while, in four and a half months to be exact, he was awake after her. Usually nowadays, with the rush of everything pregnancy once again kicking her ass, she would sleep at least two hours longer than him. Today though, it seemed to be the other way around.

He came up behind her and nuzzled her neck, leaving a kiss there and winding his hands around her midsection, splaying his palms flat against it.

"And top of the morning to you too, aca-baby number four."

She snorted, rolling her eyes. "Irish, huh? Let me guess, by some weird, distant cousin whom you have completely forgotten about until _right now_ , you've found out that you're Irish?"

He kept a straight face as he moved to stand in front of her. "One-eighth and five quarters."

"Is that even a real fraction?"

His carefully crafted expression never faltered. _Impressive._

"Yes. Obviously. I passed third grade math, didn't I?"

"Actually nerd," she said with an eyebrow raise, "you didn't."

"Well that wasn't my fault!" he exclaimed quietly with a frown. "Ms. Ryder was a total _bitch."_

"Is that right?" She leaned in to him, lowering her voice an octave to the tone of seduction. "I think that you were just a _bad little boy…"_

" _Jesus_ Bec," he murmured, connecting their lips and forcing hers open, not that she was resisting. "You have a son – no scratch that, you have _two_ sons, so don't you think your choice is a little – "

"Ah," she interjected, breaking away to shake her index finger at him in a tsk-tsk motion. There were tingles in her spine, because she knew just what he wanted to do to her, the silver glint of the devil in his eyes, and what he very well could be doing, if he was quick about it, because their children were still very much asleep.

"Do not take the Lord's name in vain, Mr. Swanson."

He chuckled darkly, sucking hard on the fleshiest part of her neck. " _Oh, Bec,_ I thought you knew…"

Before she could even ask, he bit down on her skin, causing her to gasp, loudly.

"I'm Satan."

"Who's Satan?"

Both Beca and Jesse whipped their heads towards where the voice had come from, startled. Although, that word didn't do her emotion justice. She could feel the hammering of her racing heart threatening to break through her chest.

There, standing in the entrance to the kitchen, was their four year old son, Anthony. His curls were messy, well, they were always messy as typical of the age but right now they were even more so and Beca could picture him tossing and turning in his Ninja Turtles pyjamas, dreaming fitfully, all night. Her paranoia told her it was night terrors but Jesse and their pediatrician told her it was normal. She wasn't sure who to believe.

"Hey there, little Treblemaker. Did you have a good sleep?"

Anthony nodded his head, his thumb tracing his bottom lip but he took it away and forced his hand to his side, quickly, as if worried about being caught. _Too late._ Beca hated to bring it up, knowing it embarrassed him, but both she and her husband wanted to break the habit as soon as possible. Funnily enough, his twin sister didn't have the same habit and stopped thumb sucking without any encouragement.

Speaking of –

"Mommy, can I have something to eat?"

Beca smiled warmly at her son, going to him and hugging him to her chest. She let him go a few seconds later, kissing his head before he left her arms, and she reveled in the scent of morning breath and sleep still emanating from his pores. Why did the staleness of her children's breath not disgust her, but before he brushes his teeth, Jesse's breath makes her gag? She shook her head imperceptibly. _Forever a mystery._

"Where's the rest of the Swanson Brat Pack?" Jesse asked their little boy, who was now busy swivelling on the barstool, probably seeing just how many times he could swivel completely around before Beca told him to stop.

Anthony shrugged his shoulders but offered an answer anyways. "Don't know. Molly's still sleeping?"

This was phrased as more of a question, which made her chuckle as she set a bowl with a spoon and the box of Mini Wheats in front of her son. Watching him remove the spoon and open the box of cereal, she smiled as he carefully tipped the milk jug forward. He was one of those people that put milk before the cereal.

 _"Weirdo,"_ she'd often say to him while ruffling his hair as he'd give her his Daddy's famous crooked grin. Just like she did now.

At this, Anthony shot her _the grin_ , the grin that was famous for making her weak in the knees – as stupidly cliché as that sounded - or melt her heart, depending on the day and the person giving it to her, while he poured his cereal. She loved seeing his independence. It was so stupid and so insignificant – pouring a bowl of cereal, but it was also a start. A start to independence with bigger things. Better things.

"Should I go check on her? She usually doesn't sleep this long…"

"Jess, I'm sure she's fine," Beca told him with a sympathetic look. "Besides, Sleeping Beauty, look at _pregnant_ one was up before you this morning. She's probably crashed out from her damn sugar high yesterday. Ice cream, Twizzlers _and_ a soda."

Jesse gave her a wry smile. "It was a special day. And she said that Twizzlers were her favorite."

She rolled her eyes, albeit good naturedly.

"Oh please, Daddy. If she said lions were her favorite you'd find a way to get that girl a pet lion. And I'd come home to find it wearing my great grandma's pearls or swimming in the underground pool. Oh god, that sounds like it could be straight out of a Taylor Swift music video."

With respect to her song writing chops, Taylor's newest music videos were a _little_ out there, even with a metaphorical intent. They just didn't add up, Beca thought, rearranging her momentary grimace into the smirk where her mouth had been resting before.

"Do you want me to call her PR? She's on speed dial," Jesse gave her an identical smirk and laughed, but it was subdued as he raised his hands in surrender.

"What do you want me to do, Bec? She's my little girl."

"If we get a pet lion can we name him Linus?" Anthony asked. "I like that name."

She sighed. "Whatever I choose to say right now will not make one bit of a difference with you spoiling our children, will it?"

"You could try," he told her, reaching out to massage her lower back, where it had been quite the bitch lately. "I'd like to see you try."

Oh, how badly did she want to smack his hand away for that comment but refrained, because damn did he have the magic touch. Her muscles were loosening already.

"The 39th – holy shi – poop – did I just say _thirty-nine?_ Wow, Jess. We're old as fu- ever."

He laughed, squeezing her arm. "You're still foxy as _fuck_ , I'll tell you that," he hissed into her ear, and she shoved his shoulder. _Hard._ If there was one thing she most _definitely_ wasn't right now, it was _foxy_.

She hated that word. It made her think of her grandmother, who sang show tunes at the top of her lungs well into her eighties, sans any actual music. She wanted to laugh, thinking about her very spirited – a nice way of saying _certifiably insane_ \- jowly grandmother now. Looking back, her thrived college acapella career actually made an almost prophetic amount of sense.

"But seriously. I'll give you the tenth, or even the twentieth anniversary of the damn thing, but anything after that is just stupid. _The Breakfast Club_ has been a thing for thirty-two years, which means you have watched it approximately ten million times, give or take, and it does not warrant you spoiling our children rotten like it's a fricken national holiday."

He glared at her and she glared right back. Wifely duties be damned. He pouted. Just like Molly when she didn't get her way the first time around. And then the second time. And then the third – by then her frown lines were so deep and her bottom lip stuck out so far, that Beca was afraid her lip would eventually droop and stay that way. It was 95 percent annoying and only five percent cute.

"Come on, Be _CAW_ , you're such a party pooper!"

She grinned, slapping a hand over his mouth. Okay, maybe it was only 80 percent annoying and a _whopping_ 20 percent cute. "Shut it, weirdo. You're going to wake the baby and Moll –"

"Daddy, why are you screeching like a _banshee?"_

Their little girl stood with her feet firmly planted on the last bit of carpet before the hardwood in the kitchen began, as if she had no intention to either go back to bed or to come join them.

Her hair was a scraggly mess, like a bee hive gone rogue, one side of her head a flattened crimp job, and on the other side, one braid had managed to survive, although it was loose in odd places, the fact that it had been a French braid now very questionable.

Beca noticed that her face was flushed and that she was physically itching to get out of her flannel pyjamas with bedazzled butterflies on the shirt. (For the record, that was Emily's choice, not hers.)

The kid hated pyjamas, and would one hundred percent sleep naked if they would let her. They didn't, because her Daddy feared it would lead subconsciously to no-no future job prospects – _prostitution, or stripping_ – he'd whispered to her when their daughter first suggested she sleep in the nude instead of wearing her blue pyjamas with ducklings on them. She didn't believe him. Not one bit.

Molly had been two at the time, and Beca just laughed, assuming that it was just a phase. After all, at that age, her own mother had to physically force her to keep her dress down in public. Two years later, and Beca had gotten over the fascination with her little girl parts, but Molly on the other hand, it seemed, did not.

Was it a cause for worry? No. But Jesse being Jesse, worried anyway. All the time. Right now, for example, she could see him eyeing their daughter carefully, _worriedly_ , as she pushed the hem of her top up with one hand, showing them a peek of her tiny, pale, tummy.

Molly had an outie bellybutton, she was _one in however many children_ and now Beca was looking at it with a little bit of intrigue. The only time her bellybutton – it usually looked like it was nonexistent, drowning in untanned skin - ever looked like that was when she was about ready to pop out a kid.

That's when her _dork_ of a husband geeked out the most. He loved to call it _cute_ and _adorable_ and other childish words like that, which held no real meaning for her because in her humble opinion, she looked (and felt) like a beached whale. Scratch that. She felt like a beached whale that was dying a slow, uncomfortable and _grossly sweaty_ death.

"Daddy was screaming like a banshee at your mother," he told her with a grin. "She doesn't understand my deep, impenetrable love for _The Breakfast Club."_

She rolled her eyes. _Now that was **definitely** not a good time to use the word penetrate._

Watching as Jesse walked over to their daughter and pulled her top down, with what she guessed he saw as nonchalant but other, normal people saw as obvious, she shook her head discreetly at him. He saw this and shook his head right back.

So, maybe she was a little jealous of her daughter. Which felt almost perverse and kind of psychotic but she did. A little. Jesse loves Molly's bellybutton. He goes crazy for it. That's what's adorable.

Whenever she's lying on the couch or sitting on a kitchen chair, or just generally unwitting, he would come up to her and repeatedly blow raspberries on her stomach, pretending to nibble at her protruding bellybutton with these, incredible, really, sound effects.

He would do this a lot after bath time, and especially when she would run around the house, fighting bedtime, her top half completely naked (that little bugger), screeching and living life. When he'd finally catch her, he'd lift her up from behind, turn her around in his arms, dip her as if he were dancing, and munch away on her tiny, clean, bare bellybutton. She would squeal and giggle but has never once told him to stop. Which Beca found funny, because she absolutely despises being tickled.

One time, when she was around five years old, her dad had tickled her for so long and in her most ticklish of spots – behind the knees, but as if she'd ever say a word about that to her tickle monster husband – she threw up from laughing so hard. Puked all over her herself and her blankets. It probably had something to do with having the stomach flu, but taking chances she was not.

So, she never, ever, _never-ever,_ wanted to be tickled again in her lifetime. Seriously. She wasn't kidding. Jesse had discovered that on the day she'd come to join him in Los Angeles. He carried her over the threshold of his apartment door, which looked very odd to the elderly couple next to them, heading towards the elevator and had started to tickle her sides, all spidery.

She'd slapped his chest about fifteen times before he put her down and said, _'Woah there, Half Pint, chill out.'_ She looked him straight in the eye and threatened to walk out. Right then and there. He's never dared to tickle her since.

Oh, but Molly, poor little Molly, got all of the tickles. Not that she seemed to mind. Miss Molly, as Auntie Chloe affectionately calls her, can rally with the best of them. Her pain tolerance was solid, and so was her patience. There was no question of whose child that little girl was. She was a perfect split, right down the middle, of the two of them. Jesse loved to say that she looked more like Beca, but Beca would always fire right back: she looked a lot like Jesse.

She really did. The twins shared his dimpled, wide smile, the literal epitome of unadulterated happiness and his curly hair, but _man_ , did his daughter ever look like him. Right down to and around the nose. She had his angular bone structure, with the feminine softness that her eventual-woman self, will one day appreciate. She even had her father's ears. Oh, _those ears._

Whenever he'd call her something, really anything related to her height – _Thumbelina,_ _Tiny_ _Temper, Reece's Pieces_ , (she'd give him props, he's gotten quite creative over the last however many years they've been together – she didn't even want to think about it. Beca Mitchell in a _committed_ relationship? A _marital_ relationship? One that now included _kids?_ As in _plural?_ No way! Stop the presses!)

Whenever he would refer to her with one of those names, she would flick his ear with her thumb and finger or with her tongue depending on her mood and whisper _'Dumbo'_ in his ear.

He was never particularly sensitive about the size of his ears, or so he _said._ His face never gave away any indication though that he was lying to her. He called them a wonderful if not _convenient_ gift from his own father. She thought his words were a little extreme, but whatever kept him from being self-conscious about those whoopers that always stuck out of baseball caps at a weird and precise angle.

(Fine, they weren't _whoppers._ She was acting as though they were ginormous and very much abnormal, even though they're really just a _little big.)_

Sometimes, she felt it was unfair for her to be saying this, but he never fails to remind her – affectionately or not – that her entire body is just _a little small._

Then it felt fair again and she would tease him like he teases her and that's what makes them work. Makes them balanced. Equal. _In love. (Ew_ , okay, too far.)

His face gets flushed every time she calls him _'Dumbo,'_ his blush gets deeper as she kisses his cheeks and laughs– especially when they're in front of their college friends. He's quick to nip at her neck – if that was how she's playing it – and murmur _'shove it, Shirley Temple'_ against her skin.

Even though Molly was genetically predisposed to her father's ears (and _her_ height, ironically), she was never bugged about it. Her family (well, her parents) wouldn't dare, and her preschool buddies were all too young to register anything it seemed past basic gender and some associative norms, like hair length or clothes.

(Beca had seen these drawings – including those of her twins – strewn in an organized way around their classroom. She had quickly concluded that every single one of them looked like potatoes, even _'Mommy and Daddy!_ ' but to her children she used some sort of description like _'lovely'_ or ' _amazing.'_ Maybe even _aca_ -amazing. (Oh, _Christ Almighty_ did she disgust herself sometimes.))

Seriously. Thinking back, she thinks she can remember nearly all of the times that she felt more than vaguely disgusted with herself because of Jesse Swanson. (Okay, that sounded absolutely terrible, and he _was_ a little offended when she'd told him about this revelation, but _come on, buddy, let it go_ – it's not like she had just told him that she didn't love him anymore. No need to get all bugged out. But that's Jesse for you.)

The one that came to her mind first was when they'd just came back to Barden after summer break. They were on their fourth 'official' date (yes, he loved to keep tabs, cue eye roll); and by _'date'_ she meant that they were snuggled up in his bed (did she _just_ use the term _'snuggle up'?_ There's the – what is it? - nine-hundredth time? she has been more than vaguely disgusted by herself because of a certain someone. A _certain nerd_ who uses the term snuggle up _way_ too liberally.)

 _'Come 'ere Minnie Mouse, snuggle up in bed with me, your precious Bellas can be as pouty as they want. You're worth it.'_

That's how it started. _Minnie Mouse._ Ugh. She had wanted to do something – glare at him, give his arm a shove, roll her eyes and huff exaggeratedly, but she didn't do any of it. She just got up from where she was at her desk, impassively staring at her _Intro to Philosophy_ textbook (her dad had made her take that course _again_ because she failed it the first time. Apparently never showing up to class will do that. He wanted her to be _'enriched by what college education has to offer'_ As if the Bellas didn't _enrich_ her enough already), and joined him on the bed.

 _He pulled her close to his chest and she settled in comfortably, comforted instantly by the tasteful aftershave he wore and his kiss to her hair. She watched as he simultaneously dug his hand into the popcorn and pressed play on his laptop._

 _For a minute nothing happened. Then, a picture appeared. It looked to be a theatrical poster for the movie, she was assuming; the background was a blue sky, with a baseball bat, going up its length, to its end, were kids' hands and at the top was a dog's paw._

 _" **The Sandlot"** she said aloud, which was the scratchy, red scrawl going across the bat. _

_"It's a coming-of-age baseball film which tells the story of young baseball players in the summer of 1962. Released in 93."_

 _"Wow," Beca said, "that sounds oddly verbatim. And did you pirate this!?"_

 _He shrugged, seeming nonchalant. "So, what if I did?"_

 _She gasped exaggeratedly, a hand to her chest. "No! Jesse Swanson pirated a movie? This can't be true! Say it isn't so!"_

 _He shoved her shoulder and she responded by laying her head on his, smiling._

 _"I lost my copy in the move to Barden," he grumbled as if it still affected him. Which, it probably did. "Anyway, Becs. You'll love this one. I promise. And you'll cry. I promise that, too."_

 _"Please," she scoffed. "Movies don't make me lose my cool."_

 _" **The Breakfast Club** did," he reminded her with a grin, and before she could say anything at all to defend herself, he started to sing to her, louder than was necessary. "Don't you forget about me. I'll be alone, dancing, you know it baby." _

_She bit her lip, suppressing a smile, like the one she knew she must have worn at the ICCA's that year both on stage and after their performance, when she was practically shoving her tongue down his throat. She hoped that it looked as elegant as it felt (did she seriously just use the word elegant to describe a kiss? 'It was **elegant, magnificent!'** Gross._

 _But then again, it was **their** first kiss, and she sincerely hoped it was classy because the devil knows that their very many kisses since than have been so far from that, it would make even Bob Saget's lip curl. _

_"Shut up."_

 _He grinned. "You love me."_

 _"Whatever."_

 _Just then, the movie started to play. "Sh! It's starting."_

 _Jesse leaned back, surprised. She saw him from the corner of her eye. "Did you just shush me? Really? Come on now, Bec. That's my job. You stole the fun."_

 _When she didn't say anything, he sighed, and she knew he just wanted to get a rise out of her. "It's really the only fun I get out of this relationship."_

 _It worked. Kind of._

 _"Yeah, well, the feeling's mutual, nerd. Shut up."_

 _He did._

 _They watched the entire movie in silence. And she didn't cry. The prickly sensation in her eyes was dryness. She'd been staring at the stupid screen for too long. It was very bright._

 _"You're crying. Beca Mitchell, do not turn away from me, dear lover," Jesse chuckled, his thumb pressed under her eye._

 _Why was his – dammit. She was crying, wasn't she? Dammit to hell. Way to go, tear ducts. You're obviously faulty._

 _"Shut up," she mumbled before leaning against his body and kissing him, as though her life's mission was to give him amnesia and make him forget what he'd just seen._

 _"Ah, ah, Bec. You cannot kiss your way out of this one. Sorry, babe."_

 _Well, shit. When did that one stop being foolproof? Could she screw her way out of things? **Hm.**_

 _"Okay, fine. If you really want to know my thoughts on this movie," she paused, somewhat melodramatically, and she watched his chest rise and fall in pathetic yet endearing anticipation. He wants her to like it so bad._

 _"I was rooting for the small one."_

 _"Smalls," he supplied._

 _"Smalls," she repeated. "Well that's painfully ironic, isn't it?"_

 _"Yes," he smiled at her. "It is."_

 _He was staring at her. Why was he still staring at her?_

 _"What?"_

 _A slow, Cheshire grin spread across his face. She was totally the canary._

 _"Seriously, dude. What?"_

 _This time he leaned over her, holding himself up by his arms. "You can go back to kissing me now." He raised his eyebrow in question, then his face placated. "If you want to."_

 _No reply was given. Instead, they kissed like two, drunken, sloppy teenagers with lustful, heady moans (on both parts.) That is, until Aubrey busted into her room, without any common curtesy as per usual, and coughed too loud._

 _"Kindly, get a room."_

 _Beca resisted the awful but tempting urge to point out the irony and to add **'kindly, fuck off'** after she did. _

She smiled ruminatively, which prompted her husband to ask her what it was that she was thinking about.

"Just how much you make me want to vomit," she replied, then chuckled. "And how much I love you."

Beca watched their daughter climb up onto the chair with the grace of a drunken high school student and her smile widened as Jesse kissed her temple, watching her too.

"Do you remember when they were born?"

"Of course. I wish I could've just blacked out – you know like that time after my graduation when we practically drank Jose Cuervo suppliers dry and woke up almost an entire 24 hours later, naked on the quad with no memory of how we'd gotten there?"

He nodded, but she could tell that he still had no clue where she was going with this little tidbit.

"That's ideally what I wanted. Go into the hospital, be put out by some nice anesthesia, and wake up with two beautiful babies in my arms. Easy peas-y. But, _no._ What I got, was a brutal 34 hours of what felt like eternal damnation. Christ, I felt like Satan personally had came down from Hell and made me his sex slave with how much pain those little hooligans put me through.

"It hurt to pee for a very, very long time. And we didn't have sex. At all. Us! Nothing. Nada. Zip. And why? Because the second you tried, I would flinch and that would be that. Even when it calmed down to mild discomfort, you still wouldn't touch me. We didn't have sex again until the twins were one. And that led to – "

Just then, a piercing cry made all but Beca jump. Baby cries has been the first thing she hears waking up and the last thing she hears before going to sleep- and waking up again, and sleeping, then waking – it never seemed to stop.

So, it never exactly startled her. If anything, it gave two nice matching stains onto the chest area of her new dress. So, lucky her. (And yeah, sundresses and lactating were not two things one might have once associated with the name Beca Mitchell, but there they were. And she loved it).

Beca Mitchell may not have taken too well to the idea of being a mommy, but Beca Swanson, as she reached into the crib and picked up her baby boy, her growing two year old, couldn't imagine a life otherwise. Spent doing other things, like drinking too much, or slutting it up for those Treblemakers, what she used to do, it was all so childish.

This – these beautiful dark eyes, and pursed, spittle coated lips – was all that mattered, was all that could ever matter to her now. Her babies. Her loves. Her prides and joys. Her gorgeous, little, very planned (to the surprise of both the Bellas and her parents) aca-children.

"Hello there, little Mikey. Who's a fussy little baby this morning? Huh?" she smiled down at him as his pinched face smoothed and his cries faded, with a smile at her.

"Mama! Morning!"

"That's a big boy. Do you wanna go see your brother and sister? Daddy's downstairs with them, yes he is."

If only the girls could see her now. Three and a half kids deep, wearing yesterday's maternity clothes and up before noon. They wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Except that they did, and they awed relentlessly over the child rearing, apron wearing, grocery shopping momma who'd made home in the body of Beca Mitchell – college acapella girl extraordinaire.

They'd all kept in touch over the years since they'd graduated – what's it been, like fourteen years? Holy cripes. (Damn Amy for pouring all of that Australian slang down her throat when they were younger. Look where it's gotten her).

Speaking of, Amy was rich as hell, currently travelling the world with her mother's inheritance and the stand-up (the sarcasm here is only seventy percent genuine) guy that she met on Tinder (he makes her happy – with his dark goatee and spiked up hair, so what could she say?)

Chloe was nearly finished vet school and engaged to her smoking hot marine (Beca may be married, but she wasn't blind, _seriously, damn_ ).

Cynthia Rose was still married and thriving, with flight school under her belt.

Stacy was on husband number three and raising little Bella like a champ.

Ashley and Jessica (right? Those were their names?) were living together (last she heard four years ago) with three other roommates like a mini sorority house on the outskirts of Barden.

Lily was a chef at a little hole in the wall restaurant with wicked knife skills and an authority to be reckoned with.

Aubrey had two children of her own with her cardiologist of a husband (whom she'd met after a particularly grisly panic attack) – one boy and one girl (Theo and Tia – they were prim and proper children, at five and four they spoke with the eloquence of adults and had not a hair out of place, _ever)._

Little Emily - Beca only called her this with affection, because she was a bit younger than the rest of them and it didn't seem like the woman minded too much, had finished grad school 2 years ago and she and Benji were planning a summer wedding. Emily was the Bella she'd been talking with most often because of her connection to their family (being Jesse's best friend's fiancée and all).

The four of them had weekly dinners (they only lived a few streets over from each other) and the couple was practically a built-in babysitter – out of all of the Bellas (though she would never dare say this to any of them) Auntie Emily was their children's most legitimate honorary aunt.

She saw them all the time. Molly was practically in love with her, begged to stay over for sleepovers and play Wii Karaoke while Emily braided her hair and Uncle Benji made cookies and put on a magic show. Anthony would jump at the bit to be one of (okay his only) volunteer from the audience – and squeal in delight when his Uncle Benji would saw him in half.

Beca could totally picture them with children of their own and Jesse bets that time will be in two years, max. She kind of hoped it wasn't too far off and that her husband was right, so that their kiddos could grow up together. But she only thought this in secret, of course.

Gently holding Michael against her chest, Beca descended the stairs from his nursery, smiling down at the baby as he began to mumble softly to himsef in her arms.

Jesse met her halfway and took him from her, leaving a kiss on her cheek as he did. Looking down at the child, he smiled animatedly. "Hey, buddy. How's little MJ Fox this beautiful morning?"

Beca rolled her eyes, watching as Jesse put their son down and he began to toddle around their kitchen. She should have never let him persuade her into naming their children after (apparently iconic) 80's movie stars. That was her mistake. The mistake that led to this one however, happened on their first Thanksgiving as an engaged couple – they spent it at his parents' house, to much chagrin from her father and step-monster (sorry, _mother_ ).

Over the long weekend he forced her to curl up beside him (this part didn't take much convincing at all) and watch as many of his favorite movies as they possibly could (this part did). It was the longest movie-cation in the history of the world. And they didn't even take make out breaks like they would've in college, because his mother kept popping her head in every ten minutes to make sure they weren't horizontal on his grandmother's sofa.

 _Geez, Janene, don't you want aca-grandchildren?_ Beca had always thought, each time she came into the room to ask if they wanted a drink or a more popcorn, like they were children incapable of doing anything for themselves).

And okay, Beca sort of loved Jesse's parents – she'd told him that at the end of their stay, only to see his eyes light up as he kissed the corner of her mouth, alert for any footfalls outside his bedroom door, closed for the time being.

Until Janene noticed and would likely open it again with zero discreteness and Stuart would give the two of them a nonverbal apology as he coaxed his wife downstairs once again, so that they could watch the eleven o'clock news ( _and leave the kids alone)_ is what he never said, but the intonation was there.

Janene and Stuart Swanson were the cookie cutter parents. She was the overprotective mama bear, always watching out (a little too closely) for her baby boy, and he was the go-with-the-flow, nonchalant-is-my-middle name, dad. He got involved, but not overly. He was the middle ground, keeping his wife sane as their son grew up, from a boy, to a teenager, to an adult. A _man_. A _very nice_ man.

And so, because Jesse Swanson was a _very nice_ man, who felt that celebratory sex would trump makeup sex, every time, Beca admitted to him that she actually enjoyed the _Back to The Future_ trilogy. Even thought he bore resemblance to Michael J Fox a little bit. This one may have been a little bit of a stretch, but _wow_ , did it get her laid. It got her laid in the back of the cab on the way to the airport, but still, it did what she hoped it would.

When the twins were born eight months later (their twins, like most, were early) Beca had joked with him that they should name the babies Taxi and Cab. It didn't go over all that well, because Jesse was exhausted, hadn't slept for thirty-six hours, and all he wanted to do, besides sleep, was hold his babies _with normal names_ against his chest.

He'd been such a _dad._ From the second they were born.

When he suggested Molly for their little girl with her ruddy face and eerily silent breaths, he tried to have an air of spontaneity to it, but he couldn't fool her.

Molly Ringwald had been his celebrity crush since he was fourteen years old. _The Breakfast Club_ defined his adolescence, his young adult years. It kind of defined hers, too. When she asked him about Anthony for a boy, without directly saying anything about their daughter's name, he knew. He knew that she was on board.

Though, still, she'd convinced Jesse to let her play a little joke on the Bellas. When they came into the room to see the babies, Beca stared lovingly down at them there on her chest and said, so solemnly, _"aca-bitches, I'd like you to meet your honorary niece and nephew: Taxi and Cab Swanson."_

* * *

 _Aubrey nearly had yet another panic attack, akin to the one she'd had thirty four hours before, when Jesse had called to say that she was in labor; Chloe's mouth dropped open, but she stayed silent; Cynthia Rose and Lily shook their heads, Emily tried to hide her grimace behind her hand and Amy mumbled **'nice'** under her breath, nodding pensively, as if she actually were in favor of the name choices. _

_Beca gave it a minute and then burst out laughing. "Guys, actually? I'm not serious." She turned to Jesse with a smile. "Jess, did you want to do the honors?"_

 _In response, he grinned, splaying out his hands, palms up. "Thing 1 is formally known as Anthony Robert Swanson, and Thing 2 is formally known as Molly Lincoln Swanson. They're fraternal," he supplied, when nobody said anything for a minute._

 _"No, shit," Aubrey said, bending over to hug Beca lightly. "Good going, Mitchell. I'm proud of you, maggot."_

 _Beca rolled her eyes but hugged the woman back. "Thanks."_

 _Chloe was next. She leaned over and kissed Beca's cheek. "Love you, Becs," she whispered, "They're adorable. And don't think I didn't catch your daughter's middle name. Lincoln Center. These other girls might not, but I did, and I think it's aca-super-sweet." She drew back with a secret smile._

 _"Thanks, Chlo. I mean, I may be biased but I think so, too."_

 _Amy was last. She knelt down on the floor and took in the babies' faces for a minute, both sleeping peacefully. For now. Then, she spoke._

 _"They look like peeled potatoes. With their bald heads and thin eyelids. You can barely tell they have them. Are you sure your babies aren't aliens, Shawshank?"_

 _Beca scoffed. "Yes, I'm sure. Jesus, you really have no filter, do you?"_

 _Amy looked at her quizzically. "I thought you knew." Then she smiled. "Nah, they're cute. Enough. But really, **The Breakfast Club?** Beca, where's your spine?" _

_Before she could respond, Jesse beat her to it, squeezing her shoulder. **"The Breakfast Club** has been the guidepost of our entire relationship. Does Beca tell you guys anything?" _

_"You mean, other than about all the body-rocking sex you two have that's the total muse for another smashing Justin Timberlake hit? No, she really doesn't tell us much else. What's your name again?" Amy joked, amicably punching his shoulder._

 _In time with Jesse's scarlet blush, Amy continued._

 _"Of course, she does. We're her best friends. We know the details of your first kiss – okay, well so does everyone else in the whole acapella universe. You have strong tongue muscles, my man," she laughed, and Jesse almost chocked on his horror._

 _"That's nothing to be ashamed of, Jesse. I'm sure Beca will tell you the same thing, right Bec?" Chloe winked, and she shrunk further into her hospital bed, beyond embarrassed._

* * *

Of course, during _that kiss_ , she was anything but, and appreciated his tongue muscles immensely, but the next day, when it was all over every news outlet in the state, man was she horrified. He'd felt the same, which made her feel a little better, and from that moment on, it had been the two of them against the world.

Beca shook her head to clear it of the memory. When she came out of it, she saw that Jesse was feeding the baby his bottle at the kitchen counter, where two empty bowls with spoons inside still sat. But no children.

"Jess? Where are the Twinners? Did you – "

He looked up from feeding their youngest his cereal to smile at her.

"I told them to get their little butts in gear and change out of their pyjamas, so they could be ready for Uncle Benji to pick them up in ten. Don't worry, I've got these daddy duties down pat. It's been three years, Bec. Don't doubt me now."

"Okay, good. Thanks," she told him, going up behind him and wrapping her arms around his torso and kissing the middle of his back – the only place she could reach, feeling the protrusion of his spine and the fabric of his t-shirt against her lips. "I love you."

He reached behind him with one hand and pulled – well more like smushed her closer to him. It was a little awkward, but she appreciated the gesture nonetheless. She loved being close to him. She had lost out on it for too many years, so to never take advantage of any moment this way would be an awful crime. It didn't matter that she could barely breathe.

"What brought this on?" he asked, smoothing her hair and then grabbed her hands, moving her so that they were face-to-face.

She stared into his searching gaze, the curiosity making her want to shrink into herself. She knew it wasn't but to her, it felt like scrutiny.

"I just – when we – "

His eyes softened even more, if that were even possible, and he ran his hands up and down her arms.

"When we, what? Bec, don't you hold out on me. When we _what,_ sweetheart?"

He had never called her sweetheart when they were younger, said it reminded him too much of his father, and it was also something Beca had appreciated in her own way. At the time. For him, it seemed to be a nickname that came with age, or maybe, dare she say it for risk of sounding corny and stupid, it was something that came with tenderness.

When they'd broken up after their last year at Barden, there was yelling. So much yelling. It meant that they were serious about it. Too serious. She didn't want them to be serious, couldn't take it if they actually were, and yet, her last words to him were a screaming mess of some choice words and an _"I don't even think I actually loved you!"_ for good measure.

She'd thought they didn't do dramatic, it wasn't ever something they'd made a habit of. Whenever they'd fought before, it was usually in sullen silence, until one of them – usually Jesse – would hug her close and whisper " _I'm sorry"_ into her ear. It would happen at any time, too; she could never predict when, although she'd love to think she could, if only to plead the case of knowing her boyfriend better than he did himself.

Their first big fight was _before_ they were even together. _"Jesus Christ, that's perfect, of course you're here right now! I don't need your help, okay!? Can you back off!"_

Of course, she'd felt terrible for saying that the second she said it. _Of course,_ she did. She was pretty sure she loved him back then, in fact, she knew she loved him back then. She'd spent countless hours and all those Jesse-free days letting herself come to terms with that.

She could remember Benji calling out her name, could hear him running after her, but knew that if she turned around, she would end up in a hug that she desperately needed, in the middle of a god damn break down, tearfully admitting to his best friend, that she was so, totally, aca-unbelievably, in love with the one, the only, Jesse Swanson. And she couldn't do that. No way. She hadn't been ready, then.

So, she kept going, out the back door of the stadium and as far away from it all as she could get.

That ended up being against the fountain in the quad with her knees pulled up to her chest and tears streaming down her face, like she'd just gotten the news that someone very close to her, somebody who was _so important_ to her, had just died. Or, like a girl who'd just lost the love of her life. Wasn't that the truth. It wasn't allowed to be until much later, not until the day she marched up to his dorm room and nearly lost it when she looked at his face.

Okay, so she did lose it a little bit. So, what? She was in love, dammit. It was protocol _. "Jesse…"_

When he closed the door on her, she just stood there for a minute, before walking away. Halfway down the hallway, she felt tears start to fall and swiped at them, angrily, murmuring a half-hearted _. "Jesus,"_ under her breath with a wet laugh that lacked all conviction.

When she got to her dorm room, she was glad Kimmy Jin was out because she let out a scream. A real, visceral, gut-wrenching scream, slamming her fists into her eye sockets and falling, actually quite ceremoniously, onto her bed in a fit of tears. _"Beca Mitchell, you are such a fucking idiot,"_ she berated herself, hiding her face in her hands.

Her mind flashed to their kiss again. _"You're such a weirdo"_ Their lips had come together and separated and then came together again. Just before he kissed her again, he'd murmured _'I'm sorry,'_ against her mouth and she'd grinned against his, _"me too,"_ both of them fighting to keep their lips together. They didn't do dramatic. No, they did not.

So, when she walked out of his apartment in Los Angeles she didn't look back.

"Do you remember when we broke up? After Barden?" she asked him, and he stroked her cheek with a nod.

"Yeah. And baby, I wish I didn't," he told her with a sigh. "It was awful. It's topped every fight we've ever had and probably ever will have."

She agreed.

This wasn't like the time he ate the last of her favorite cereal from the dining hall their sophomore year (before the Bella's got their house, there was a lot of dining hall action – it was included in tuition and none of them were exactly in a position to refuse such college amenities). When she got back to her dorm, he was standing in the middle of the room with a sheepish grin and a miniature box of Fruit Loops.

With the pout she'd been rocking all day still in place on her lips, she walked up to him, sighed, took the cereal out of his hand and stared at him. He pulled her into a hug with a chuckle, and whispered _"I'm sorry,"_ into her hair.

She couldn't help it. She laughed. _"Jess. We just fought about breakfast food. We're in the big leagues now."_

It wasn't like the time when she got _aca-seriously_ wasted at their junior year hood party. Chloe's words, not hers. She was sloppy and said some things, but he'd stayed with her throughout the entire night, and in the morning, with her skin dry and her head pounding, he told her he was sorry before she could've even _thought_ to apologize to him.

She told him that he had nothing to be sorry for, but he refuted.

 _"It doesn't matter. Apologies are really important to me, Bec. You know that. No matter who was in the wrong. It's about smoothing things over on both ends."_

The both of them prided themselves on mutual apologies since day one, it's what made their relationship work. It was steady. Equal. They could teach their own conflict resolution workshop on campus, they were that good. Until they weren't.

There were no apologies that day in LA. There was tears and general upset, but no apologies. For the first time in _four years._

They fought about the distance, about it impacting her career, to which he responded _"that internship!? Really Bec, it's been two years and they haven't bumped you to a paying job? Just blow them off. They don't need you."_

* * *

 _"Yeah, well. I could say the same thing. Your job doesn't need you. Jesus, Jess. If you didn't take this stupid, next to nothing job, we'd still be happy right now. Probably living in New York. With two cats."_

 _He crossed his arms over his chest. "I hate cats."_

 _She mimicked him. "So do I."_

 _He groaned in frustration. "Then why would we have cats? You're not making any sense, here."_

 _"My point Jesse, is we could have been happy, until you came here. Fuck, dude. You left me the morning after graduation. You let me wake up alone, with the worst hangover I've ever had. How could you do that!?"_

 _"I left you a note."_

 _"Yeah, so, suddenly a note next to my pillow that says 'Love you, Bec. Call you when I get to LA. Hope you're not feeling too shitty. Jess. Xoxo' is the same as actually giving me a hug and kiss goodbye? You didn't even say it! And I hope you were puking your guts out in that tiny airplane bathroom. "_

 _"I said xoxo! Kiss, hug, kiss, hug!"_

 _"But you didn't say goodbye, Jesse! Just like my dad! The middle of the god damn night he just up and left! You know goodbyes are essential for me. And you ignored that."_

 _He sighed. "Because I hate them. I know it's selfish but if I actually looked you in the face and said goodbye, I wouldn't go. I wouldn't have left."_

 _"And maybe you shouldn't have. Maybe I hate that you did. I think I might actually hate you for leaving me."_

 _"Beca, no. That's childish. Don't do that with me. We're adults. We can make it."_

 _She rolled her eyes. "Clearly, we can't."_

 _"Okay, in total, I used fourteen barf bags on that flight. Does that make you feel any better?" He tried to laugh, but it fell flat._

 _She fought the urge to scream. "Be serious. I'm done. I can't do this anymore. We tried. It didn't work, so what?"_

 _Hurt flashed across his face and she had to look away. "So what? We love each other. We aren't just going to give up."_

 _"And that's your choice to make? Feminist my ass. And you know what – "_

 _Before she said those last, awful words, she paused. And he waited. His eyes never left her. Not even after. She could feel them on her back._

* * *

Before she even knew what was going on, there were tears. Tears just like the ones he couldn't see that day. She looked at her little baby in his high chair, at his eyes, his nose, his mouth, and at the little dimples in his knees. She marveled at how much he looked like her, at how much he looked like Jesse, and Molly, and Anthony, and fought the temptation to full on sob.

"Oh, Bec," he sighed, hugging her tightly to his chest. "I know you never met what you said. It's over now, done."

"He's so _beautiful,_ Jess," was all she said, her tears strangling her words.

"Could you imagine if he never existed? And the twins? What if they weren't on this earth, either? If we were apart and god forbid you married Caroline and had tone deaf children and I – I married some guy who reminded me of my father to echo my daddy issues and had no children at all, or children that weren't _yours._

"What If it wasn't inevitable after all, and our aca-children were just the hypothetical product of naive college kids boozed up with warm beer? What if I really did fuck it all up?"

"And you didn't," he hummed into her ear. "These what ifs are not doing anybody any good. I love you, I will _always_ love you. And if you ever forget it, just look into the eyes of our wonderful, gorgeous aca-children and they will tell you all you need to know. Now, wipe those tears, my lady-love, before the Twinners see them."

Beca nodded with a lilting laugh and a shove to his shoulder. "I love you too. So, so, much. When did we become the mushy couple?"

Before he could answer her, the sound of little feet pounding down the stairs roused them completely from their thoughts.

"Mommy, Daddy! Are Auntie Emmy and Uncle Benny here yet?"

Both Molly and Anthony crashed against their parents' knees, hugging them tight, like they were both taking a stand to never, ever let go. She needed that.

She roped her hands through both heads of hair and then her husband's too, as his palm lay flat against both of their children's backs, the other one against hers.

"I don't think so, little chicks. I think – "

Just then, the doorbell rang, and both of the kids ran to get it as Michael moved his arms around with a smile and laugh, feeding off of the excitement of his siblings.

"Molly are you wearing your pyjamas still? And Anthony? Did your Momma and Daddy not get you two jumping beans dressed this morning?" Emily could be heard asking, and Beca rushed to the door, leaving Jesse with their youngest.

"Hey, Em. Oh my god, _it's true!_ I thought Daddy told you two to get dressed fifteen minutes ago! Goobers," she chuckled, ruffling their hair as they leaned into her affection. She couldn't be mad at them right now.

"Hey! How's pregnancy treating you this time around?" Emily asked, her eyes on Beca's protruding belly as Jesse came into the entry way, the baby in his arms.

Michael walked towards her, his hands outstretched and Beca smiled, taking their littlest boy and nuzzling his soft, baby cheek. "It's been okay. Not glamorous. But okay."

She looked back at Jesse, who was nodding at her with a smile of contentment on his face that likely matched her own. "And I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note: So? And I'm aware Beca's gotten slightly cheesier and that her young adult self would (and does) hate her for it. Even her thirty-something self wants to kick herself sometimes (as I hope it came across) but I'd like to believe Jesse brings it out of her. :)**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Here's the second chapter! As I mentioned before, all one-shots are not correlated in any way, although they all do follow my head-canon 'Jesseca' universe :) I'll bounce around in years - as you'll be able to tell. Anyways, please review and let me what you think if you want to read more! I have so many ideas in my head but if I don't have anybody reading them and enjoying them, what's the point? So, yeah, just enjoy and review! :) Prompts are accepted - and I'll see if I can fit them in somehow, if anyone is willing to give them! :)**_

* * *

When the forth (and final, she was serious this time) Swanson child was born, the first thing out of Beca's mouth, right after _"oh my god, I honestly think she's me, reincarnated"_ was _"Jess, we're finished._ "

Of course, Jesse had been confused, and a little more than mildly alarmed – _"wait, Bec. Are you saying you and I are finished?_ **Finished** _ **,**_ _finished?"_

She'd wanted to laugh. He was looking at her in the dumbfounded ways of their children, but it wasn't anything close. He was scared. Frightened. Actually, frightened.

Jesse Swanson had been suddenly reduced to the man who'd hugged her knees and buried his face into her stomach during _The Grudge_ (just like her other three children would during the Mad Hatter's scenes in _Alice in Wonderland_ ) at the mere hypothetical of divorce.

It was the merest of all hypotheticals – she admittedly could never give him up, if only because they now had four kids and two hands each, which evened out nicely now.

 _That_ was why she loved him. Her greatest fear that had stuck with her since the tender age of ten was that big, ugly, deceitful word. _Divorce._

She'd rather die at the hands of some unflattering, slow-going disease than ever abandon her four wonderful, beautiful aca-children, who had done everything for her and then some (including forcing her to remove her belly button ring – the hole and since grown over and still, she held that over their heads).

When they turn twelve and start complaining about the exaggerated woes of adolescence – _"you never let us do anything fun!"_ – she will look them straight in the eye and say something like _"okay, well, thanks to you, I will never look remotely attractive in a bikini again. And forget the midriff shirts I used to rock in high school. To purely mock. Don't get any ideas there, Molls."_

So, when her laughter subsided, and Jesse's momentary frustration (because why was she laughing?) had passed, she breathed out a sigh. "I mean, we're finished having children. Four's a nice number. Even."

She laughed again. "Divorce? For Christ sakes, Jesse. _Never_."

When it became his turn to laugh, it was her turn to be confused. It wasn't the reaction she had been expecting. He'd told her he'd wanted twenty aca-children with her, if only so they could _"beat those damn Duggar people"_ (granted, it had been their sophomore year hood night party and he'd been smashed to smithereens (as Amy had so eloquently put it)).

She couldn't remember if he'd even boomeranged after the sobriety test that year. No. He hadn't. That was the year of his broken nose. _Ouch, babe._

As his laughing continued as a steady chuckle bridging onto hysteria because they'd been up for nineteen hours straight, it finally clicked for her with a somewhat pitiful groan. _Oh Jesus_.

She'd forgotten. She'd been doing so well, too. No _'Christ sakes'_ had left her mouth for over three weeks. And here, it's back. She'd forever blame his mother and her middle-aged habit of using this particular phrase.

It had started Thanksgiving 2011, and as the number of holidays she and Jesse spent together grew higher, so did her presence at the Swanson household, and around the one, the only, Mrs. Janene Swanson. By Christmas 2014, Janene had said it a total of 427 times over the course of two Thanksgivings, two Christmases and one Easter.

Beca had started to keep count that first Thanksgiving, when the carving knife had slipped from Stuart's hand onto the hardwood floor, and the chastising " _for Christ sakes, Stu"_ was the twentieth time she'd said it that day _alone._

By then, it had become a game for her, which she later shared in with Jesse. When the couple left his parents' house on the Tuesday, the total number was forty-five.

"Jess, oh my god. I had been doing so well!"

He laughed, stroking her cheek and that of their newborn daughter.

"I know, Bec. I was _so_ proud of you, too. I mean, I still am, considering you just gave birth to our, apparently last, seven-pound five-ounce aca-child. But now, it's just a little bit less."

"I didn't mean to say it…it just kind of…came out."

"I know that too," he said, "and that's what worries me. You're going to grow up to be just like her."

"Oh," Beca rolled her eyes. "In that case, I'm happy to spare you a life of _eternal misery_ with a woman who cooks for you, cleans for you, and does all of your laundry, if that's what you want?"

He laughed. "Bec, are you kidding? I clean up around the house too!"

She echoed his laugh. "Jess, are _you_ kidding? You're worse than the kids!"

"Fine," he amended, with a sheepish grin, knowing that she was right.

He pled guilty to his messes nearly every time, especially the one that involved a trip to the ER one weekend.

Jesse had left a spoon covered in peanut butter on the counter, and Molly, being the one of their bunch to ignore the fact that curiosity killed the cat, stuck the spoon right in her mouth. Her tongue swelled up instantly and her throat had started to close.

Luckily, Beca had been right there, as her daughter coughed and sputtered, or who knows what could have happened. Sometimes, it kept her up at night, and it hadn't even been her mistake to own.

"But, the difference here is, that you don't see me jumping at the chance to have hot, sweaty, gyrating sex with my mother, do you?"

She crinkled her nose and faked gagged for good measure. "No."

"Exactly," he chuckled, kissing her cheek. "So, you're a little bit like my mom. Which isn't a terrible thing. And I love you, in _every_ way, which is more than I can say for mom," he grimaced, then grinned. "Now, do you want me to go tell everybody that she's arrived?"

"Be my guest," she sighed, suddenly feeling incredibly exhausted.

In the last hour since she'd finished laboring, large, looming waves of tiredness have crashed over her. They were so strong sometimes that she'd forget about the pain of her abdomen and the tenderness of her breasts, specifically the right one, where the baby had latched on, finally, after a few more go's than usually seen, with a particular roughness.

Figuring she could rest for just a minute before everybody crowded into the tiny hospital room, Beca closed her eyes. Then, realized she'd spoken too soon, as she heard the piddling chatter and pounding feet she'd recognize anywhere as the sound of her children.

 _Her_ _ **other**_ _children,_ she thought with a start, bending her head to take in the aromatic smell of newborn baby.

"Mommy, Mommy! Can we see her!? Please!? Daddy said we had a new little sister! Please, can we see her? With a maraschino cherry on top?"

"Hey, little chickadees," Beca whispered, letting Michael grasp her finger in his hand as Jesse tried to hold him still against his chest.

It wasn't exactly working all that well, but neither was his squirming bothersome, so she let it be. He wasn't just walking now, he was running too, that little up and coming Forest Gump.

Jesse would have loved that one, if he hadn't been the one to mention it in the first place, when their baby boy took off in a run for the first time, following her into the bathroom, and unfortunately off camera.

"I guess I forgot to wish you guys Merry Christmas this morning, huh?"

Molly pursed her lips, her hand going to the spot on her head where Beca's hand just was, like she was feeling for something, or maybe she just missed that particular touch. Sighing, Beca leaned over the bedrail as best she was able and placed a gentle kiss to her daughter's knuckles.

"Uncle 'Gago read _The Grinch_ wrong. No voice. Not like Daddy. And he didn't sing like Frosty, either."

The little girl made eye contact with her, then and stared at her so intently, it was as though she could see her mother's thoughts running through her head as a physical entity.

Those big brown eyes were wide, with the milky expanse of a puppy, reminding Beca so startlingly of her father. Her eyes filled with tears.

If he had to curse their daughter with something, why did it have to be the eyes? _Dammit, Swanson._ She could kill him. Right in this moment, she could really kill him. _Chill, Mitchell,_ she told herself, _it's just the leftover hormones. Dammit,_ _ **hormones.**_

Luckily, before Beca could become a full-on mess, Jesse stepped in, putting a hand on his daughter's back and rubbing in soft circles.

"My little Prom Queen, you knew that Mommy was going to have the baby soon, and there was a chance that it could be on Christmas Eve…you know that bag we had packed by the door?"

Beca watched as Molly nodded slowly, snuggling into her father's side as best she could. "Mhm. Mommy's baby bag. For the baby."

As this was going on, Anthony came closer to the bed and reached for his mother's hand, placing his own against her palm.

She looked down and lightly squeezed her palm shut, then looked up to give her son a small smile.

"Hey, Bubba. Merry Christmas. How do you feel? Excited?"

Anthony shook his head, _yes_ , but it was tentative. "Mommy, you feel excited?"

What he was really asking, she knew, was _'Mommy, do you feel okay?'_ He was alarmed by her tears, which made her want to cry even more.

He was the most compassionate child, and like his sister's eyes, she had his father to thank for that.

' _I love you, Swanson,'_ she thought, this time appreciating his role in their genetic makeup, because, in this world, if her children had nothing else but compassion, they could still make it.

"I feel _very_ excited, sweet boy. And you want to know why?"

She tickled his stomach and he laughed. Beca would never have seen herself as the tickling sort of mom, _ever,_ yet here she was, tickling her son, because he loved it just as much as her daughter. She was also the sort of mom whose sole reason to live and breathe was to make her children happy.

It was an awful (and by _awful_ , she really meant not-so-awful-at-all) gender conforming stereotype, sure, one that her young-adult self would have never found even as a blip on her radar, that was now her entire life.

Her entire life that she now shared with a man whom she also would have never found even as a blip on her radar, back then; not if he hadn't found her first and then been so incessant after he did.

"Because it's Christmas! And your baby sister is finally out of my tummy! _Thank you, god,"_ she mumbled the last part under her breath.

The tail end of her pregnancy really had been hell. She'd been a week overdue, uncomfortable, and no longer felt in control.

Baby Girl would come out when Baby Girl wanted to come out, because nobody, not even her parents, puts Baby in a corner.

Again, Jesse would have been proud of that one, too, if he hadn't already said it to her as she was moaning and groaning about her feet being so swollen they'd felt as though they were going to pop, two days before Baby Girl Swanson's arrival, with a proud smirk on his face.

Right then, Beca had known this little girl of hers was going to enjoy screwing with her parents for her entire life. Like mother, like daughter was how the saying goes.

"Christmas!" Molly exclaimed, from where she was cuddled into her father's chest and Jesse chuckled, kissing the top of her head. "And Baby Girl Swan-y," she added as an afterthought.

Was it a begrudging afterthought, or was that just Beca imagining things?

"What's her name?" Anthony was the one to ask, gazing down at the infant in wonder. Molly on the other hand, stayed put at her Daddy's side.

Jesse nodded at her encouragingly overtop of their older daughter's head. "Go ahead, Momma. You tell them," he told her with a smile, as Molly echoed the sentiment. "Yeah, Mommy. Tell us!"

The two of them had known her first name since the week they could find out the gender, had thought that they were pretty set on her middle name too, that is, until " _Baby Girl Swan-y"_ had successfully passed her due date.

"Anthony, Molly and Michael." Upon hearing his name, Michael's head snapped up and he stopped playing absently (and quietly) with his Daddy's fingers. "Mama, tell!"

Beca laughed, though it was subdued. "That's what I'm trying to do, baby boy. This little peanut's name is Ava. Ava Noelle Swanson. Do you like it?"

It was pretty fitting, Beca thought, with a sentimentality unusual to her, that their daughter was born on this particular day.

It was almost full circle; when Jesse came into her life, he brought with him a whole new meaning to the holidays, one she'd missed out on for longer than she should've had to, and now, Ava has come into their life, together, and has given Christmas a whole other importance – a birthday without the bias of religion. A day that celebrates _her_. Their youngest and _last_ aca-baby.

She'd stress this until the day Jesse got a vasectomy – a real one, not the one that she'd tried to preform on him with an assist from Amy when they were just a little tipsy – and by a little tipsy, she really means having a hangover that surpasses their universal scale by probably _infinity_. And she _wasn't_ being dramatic.

"Like Noelle in our Christmas stories?" Anthony was asking now, looking to both his mother and father questioningly.

"Exactly like that, buddy," Jesse said, moving closer to the hospital bed, pulling Michael further up on his hip and pushing Molly forward too.

"Because she was birthed on Christmas?" was Molly's follow up question, which made Jesse cringe from beside her and Beca grimace a little.

" _Born_ , my little Prom Queen," he told their little girl, pulling her into his side and kissing her temple affectionately. "Ava was _born_ on Christmas, yes."

"Oh. I want a Christmas name." This came out of her mouth almost like a thought she was having, rather than a blatant request.

"Me too!" Anthony said, and Michael followed suit with an excited few claps of his hands and a "Me too! me too!"

"You all want Christmas names?" Beca asked her children as she stroked the top of Ava's cotton-capped head.

"Yeah!" all three of them said at the same time, with identical smiles. Michael's toothless grin especially made her heart swell. Three sizes too big. Just like the Grinch. _Ha._

"Okay, you asked for it." She laughed. "Michael, your new name is Michael Jack Frost Swanson."

In response to his new name, Michael grinned, tangling his fingers into Jesse's hair.

"He's not really excited, Mommy," Molly observed as Jesse shook his head, both, it seemed, in disagreement and to try and discreetly free the baby's fingers from curling further into his scalp.

"He is, see? He's smiling."

Molly shrugged, unconvinced, clapping her hands together. "What's my Christmas name?"

"Molls, your Christmas name is Molly Mrs. Clause Swanson. I can call you that from now on, if you'd like?"

Beca watched her daughter think about it, her eyebrows furrowing.

"Okay…" she mumbled noncommittally, pressing a finger to her bottom lip.

"And Anthony, my boy, your Christmas name is Anthony Rudolph Swanson."

"Do I get a big red nose!?" he asked hopefully. "Like Rudolph?"

"No, you get to keep your own nose." Beca laughed.

"Hm…" Anthony hummed, and then Molly mimicked her brother before saying "N'er mind, Mommy. I like my own name better."

"Yeah," Anthony said, "I don't want to be called by my Christmas name. Only at Christmas time. But not now."

"Why not now?" Jesse asked with an eyebrow raise, confused. "It's Christmas today!"

At their son's response, "because I don't like it," both of his parents couldn't help but laugh, which made the twins laugh, too.

After the family, minus Michael, who has since fallen asleep on his daddy's shoulder, sobered up, Jesse ran his hand through her hair, leaning down to kiss the crown of her head.

"Bec, should I go tell the obnoxious acapella gangs out there that you're ready for visitors?"

"Sure," she nodded, looking back down at the baby on her chest, still sleeping, just like her older brother.

It was so weird to think of Michael as the older one. It would take some getting used to. It would probably sink in when they were up at 3AM, soothing unaccented cries and having yet another newborn suckle on her nipple. _Dammit, not this again._

"You can take these guys with you."

This earned two very objecting _'but Mommy!'_ and Beca shook her head, beckoning them closer. The children leaned over the bedrail, expecting a secret to be shared. Those two loved secrets.

"Listen here, my Siamese kittens, you guys are going to go into the waiting room with Daddy and your brother, while all of your aunts and uncles come in here to meet your sister, okay?"

She leaned forward a little more and placed a kiss to both of their heads. "I love you."

"We love you too, Mommy," Molly spoke for the both of them, which was a habit both Beca and Jesse wanted to break, for fear of their son becoming submissive.

Beca looked to Anthony, waiting for a response.

"We love you," he said, and she patted his hand with a smile, as Jesse took Molly's hand and Anthony took Molly's and they left the room in complying silence.

* * *

A minute later, Jesse opened the door to her room and poked his head inside.

"Bec, it's insanity out there, I tell you, insanity!" he exclaimed dramatically, a hand to his heart as he fell back against the door.

"Jess, where are our kids?" she asked, ignoring his comment.

"They're with Emily and Benji. But seriously, Bumper's out there trying to get my poor sap of a best friend to sing a mix of _Sweet Child of Mine_ and _The Little Drummer Boy._ It's pretty terrible."

"Doesn't that sleigh bell ding-a-ling have any concept of tune? Greenday? Really? If it has to be infiltrated by whiteness, John Mayer is the way to go. "

"Agreed," Jesse nodded and before he could say anything else, she interrupted him.

"And why is he even here right now? Did Amy invite him? I swear to every god on this earth, if she did I'm gonna..."

She sighed. "What did I tell that girl about taking men back who don't deserve her? Especially if that man is Bumper Allen." Rolling her eyes, she added "will she _ever_ learn?"

Jesse sighed too as he walked towards the bed and extended his hand for her to take. She did.

Another sigh left his lips while he stayed silent for a minute, doing nothing but tracing purposeful circles with his thumb along her palm.

"Bec?" he whispered, staring down at their hands, there together on top of her lap.

"Yeah babe?"

Her voice was just as quiet, blanketed by the smoothness of drug-induced slumber.

The term of endearment had only been a product of the high doses of morphine their nurses had been periodically pumping her with over the course of the last nineteen hours, but right now, especially right now, she'd give it to him.

She knew that he'd take it any day, if she'd be more willing to give it.

"Thanks for taking me back."

She smiled. "Thanks for coming back."

Beca didn't know what brought that on. Until she did. Her mind was lagging because of the sweet, gracious morphine that was coursing through her veins, but she'd gotten it eventually.

He felt like he didn't deserve her but really, she knew, that it was _one-hundred percent_ the other way around.

That _she_ didn't deserve _him_.

She'd been an overall shitty person to him the last couple months before they'd called it quits and has since sort of hated herself for it every other day of her life.

If Jesse knew this, he'd probably hate himself, even more, and so Beca didn't tell him.

She kept this little tidbit to herself. And until this moment, here with him, hadn't regretted that decision.

"You didn't have to you know," she told him. "You didn't have to come back."

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers, and then, he spoke, and only for a brief second did his gaze move to their newborn daughter as her porcelain features crinkled and pursed in wakefulness.

"I did. I had to come back because I _love_ you. Because I will _always_ love you. And _this_ ," he gestured to Ava, reaching to gently push her bottom lip back in as it stuck out in a digestive pout.

"I had to come back so that my children could be _aca_ -children, so that they could be aca-children with your pout. They _had_ to be _your_ children. There was no other option for me, baby. It was inevitable."

"Everything's always inevitable with you," she rolled her eyes, but accepted his kiss fully and readily.

Just then, everybody piled into the room without warning. She gasped in surprise and then just as quickly, laughed, because there was Amy, budging her way through the crowd, threatening, and quite loudly for a hospital maternity ward, to _'release the kraken'_ and promising no mercy if they all didn't let her see Beca first, and _'that little Swanson rug rat.'_

"Ames," Beca cautioned her, putting a stalling hand on her arm as she neared Ava, who by now was wide awake, and on high alert, but at peace with the activity of the room, and that was something Baby Beca couldn't relate to.

In all of her baby pictures, especially those taken when she was literally hours old, Beca looked frightened, her own eyes, those that were nearly the perfect picture of her younger daughter's, half the size, as if she were fighting the urge to just close them and block out the world.

Her clunky headphone obsession started shortly after she'd turned eight, and experienced the (surprising, honestly) drama of third grade. Clamping her eyes shut and screaming at the top of her lungs until everybody left her alone in her solitude only worked for so long.

Three straight weeks of after-school detention in the principal's office taught her all she needed to know. Her daughter would never experience three weeks for half an hour with her principal after school, not with those curious, expressivist's eyes. (And her Daddy's straight laces but putting all that pressure of her entire academic career on his shoes would be cruel, so those beautiful eyes would do most of the heavy lifting).

Thinking about it now, as she watched Amy hold her daughter, Beca wanted to smack herself for a) making that _awful_ joke, because that was Jesse's domain, not hers, it had _never_ been hers and b) it being a joke that not even her dork of a husband would laugh at.

Emily would though. Beca smiled to herself, her gaze passing over the woman who stood next to Benji, a hand on her one-month bump (sh! Nobody else knew yet! It was a surprise even to them) and, ironically, a laugh on her lips. Legacy always had her back.

"Em," she called to her, and Emily looked up, that laugh in full bloom now as she watched Benji pull a pair of pink baby booties from what appeared to be thin air.

Emily came over to her as soon as she took the booties from her fiancé. He wasn't for much longer though, as she was always keen to remind them all – _"Ji-Ji and I are getting married in 4 months! Can you believe it?"_

Really, Beca couldn't believe that she was marrying such a _colossal geek,_ but she had married a _colossal nerd_ , so who was she to judge?

And she called him Ji-Ji _in public_ and Benji _actually liked it_ , so those two were destined for forever together, or, at least until one of them dies. It made her happy to think about. They both deserved it _so much_.

"What's up, Swanson?" she grinned at her, and Beca smiled back. Emily had been the first one to start calling her by her married name in endearment.

It had been a joke, when she was freshly nineteen and it had only been a few months since she and Jesse had officially started the whole dating thing, when Beca was _supremely_ fond of calling Emily by her _'Legacy'_ moniker. She's probably thought this about herself before – well, she knew she had, many, many times in her life, but man was she a total _dick._

* * *

 _One casual Friday night – one of many after they partied like no other the entire weekend of the ICCA's - the entire band of them was sprawled across the couches and each other, watching a movie (ironically). Beca was laying across Emily's legs with her head on Amy's thighs (the comfiest pillow one could ever have, by the way)._

 _She sighed, watching as Jaden Smith did his thing on the screen and flicked the younger Bella in the head. "Yo, Legacy, can you steal the popcorn from Chloe?"_

 _When Beca had come in through the door and dropped her bag on the floor, kicking off her shoes, she was surprised to find the girls watching a movie; being normal. Not being all annoying and acapella-y. Although, she'd long ago admitted to herself that she was also annoying and acapella-y, just like all of them, and that she loved it._

 _What she didn't love, was their choice of movie._

" _Jesus Christ,_ The Karate Kid? _And it's not even the real deal. Get out of here."_

 _She'd made a move to leave, but Chloe had grabbed her arm. "No. Stay," she mumbled, sounding as though she was on the verge of falling asleep._

 _So, because it was too late, and she'd already publicly made it known that she loved those girls (dammit), Beca sat down on the couch in between Amy and Emily, making a small, noncommittal harrumph noise in protest._

 _It was one of Jesse's favorites. Well, the Ralph Macchio version. She would never dare tell her boyfriend that she'd actually hated this movie (at least, she wouldn't until they were old and grey and about to die without fair warning, or if he majorly pisses her off and she wants to win their fight. She'd have a weak spot to hit. So, it would be whichever one comes first)._

 _Emily made a slightly wounded noise and rubbed where Beca had flicked her. "Ow."_

 _When she made eye contact with her, there was a sly sparkle there, a sly sparkle that she hadn't noticed until it was too late. "No problem-o, Swanson."_

" _Woah," Chloe gasped from Emily's other side. "Did we miss something here? Becs, hold on, you didn't marry the guy, did you? I mean, I'm happy for you guys and all but we're still on rival acapella teams. That would be a bad rep."_

 _Beca rolled her eyes. "No, Chlo. I didn't marry him. It's not like it's only been three months or anything, either. My toner has been kept in check for the sake of you nerds, don't you worry your pretty, ginger head about it."_

" _But you will get married, right? And have babies? Oh my god they'd be like_ _ **acapella**_ _babies! You two are like the Romeo and Juliet of acapella!"_

 _Another eye roll from Beca and a heavy sigh, but there was a smile enrobed in its inflection. "Aca-children. And sure, fine, whatever. But I'm Romeo," she added in for good measure._

" _Fine," Emily said slowly. "You can be Romeo. Just promise me one thing?"_

" _What's that?"_

" _Don't die at the hands of yourselves before you get married, okay? You two are my best shot at love, Swanson. Don't mess it up."_

" _Not counting on it, Legacy," Beca smirked, kicking her in the calf, lightly._

* * *

Soon after, everybody else tried to jump on the Swanson train, but, even after she and Jesse had gotten married, and it was now appropriate, if not lawfully obligatory, she'd shut them down, one by one.

Even her husband, who, bless his big, beautiful, incredibly envious heart, just wanted his father's name back. He'd tried calling her that once, offhandedly, after coming home from work one evening – " _what's crack-a-lakin Swanson?"_ and it was so weird that the both of them physically cringed.

" _I shouldn't – "yeah please don't – uh – "That's Em's thing, isn't it?" "Yeah, kind of…" "And it even sounds cooler when she does it. Dammit!"_

They'd had a good laugh after that and then he'd kissed her on the crown of her head like he would his children, before swiftly crouching down to be at eye level with the matching jolly jumpers and doing just that.

As he rose, he'd captured her mouth in a languid kiss and mumbled a " _Hey, Bec,_ against her lips as they broke apart and everything was then as it should be.

"Well, let's see. I just gave birth to my fourth child and am _stupidly_ exhausted. And my lady parts are not feeling a lot of love right now, either. I just _know_ that my toner for my hot ass Treblemaker won't be making an appearance anytime soon, because my sex drive goes to shit _every time_.

"And neither will my angel-made skinny jeans that both the ass of my twenties and the ass of my non-pregnant self could fit into, as annoyingly interchangeable as they are – what kind of thirty-two-year-old woman wants the butt of a twenty year old?"

"Can I answer this one, babe?" Cynthia Rose interjected with a devilish wink and Beca shook her head at her.

"No. Because I'm trying to make a point. I just had yet another baby – that's four babies in the span of six years. Girls, my body is _fucked_. That's it.

"Soon, I'll start to pee when I laugh, and no matter how glamorous that Sketchers model with the God-given calves makes it look – with the balloons and the confetti and the gaggle of women surrounding her looking happy as clams bathing in water made of gold – it is not going to be attractive. It will _never_ be attractive."

Emily was full on laughing, it was almost spastic, and soon, so were all of the Bellas.

Beca's eyes turned into slits as she watched Emily hold her daughter close to her chest, the baby having since been passed (with complaint) to her from Amy.

"Look at what you've started. You're laughing now, little girl, but this is what you have to look forward to in, oh, eight months time."

"Beca!" Emily screeched in a whisper. "Shut up! If my mom finds out that I got pregnant before the wedding she's gonna kill me! Didn't you know my Dad is a pastor?"

Her eyes widened. "Wait, seriously?"

"No," Emily smirked, putting her hand on her arm and giving Ava's forehead a kiss. "I was just busting your lady balls, Swanson. But seriously. This is your day. We'll tell everyone soon."

Beca raised her eyebrows. "My lady balls, huh? Well done, Legacy. I give you props. And fine. Soon, though, _better_ be soon. Because I hate keeping this secret from everyone."

"Thanks," Emily told her, standing up from where she sat on the chair next to the bed, and moved to hand off Ava to the next Bella in waiting: Chloe Beale.

Chloe took the baby into her arms in a way that made it look like she'd held thousands of babies before this, and sure, she's held, swaddled, and twirled her other three children, but this was different than that.

Beca looked over at her children, well, the twins, at the very back of the hospital room, practically shoved against the radiator, with Jesse and Michael nowhere to be found all of the sudden, leaning against Chloe's husband's chest as he laughed and smiled at them.

"Chicago's really good with them, you know," she broached the subject carefully, unsure how Chloe was going to react. That woman was the epitome of a fiery redhead. "What's the hold up?"

"The marine. Enlisting. I don't know. Me," Chloe said, her eyes never leaving the baby's face, who was staring up at her with this insurmountable curiosity of someone who was seeing this big, beautiful world for the very first time.

"What do you mean _you_?" Beca asked, her voice soft, barely heard in the din (or rather, quite obnoxious noise) of the others' voices.

Before Chloe could answer, Beca's doctor knocked on the door, a little louder than necessary to be heard over the noise of this tiny room that they – well _she_ – had been stuck in for over two days now.

"We've been receiving complaints of noise level from people in the rooms near this one. So, I'm going to have to ask those of you who have had your fill of sweet baby Swanson," she smiled gently at Beca, who was still focused on Chloe, but saw this through the corner of her eye, "to wait in the waiting room, if that's what you want to do, okay?"

Everyone nodded, and most of them left, showering her with more congratulations and hugs before they did. Chicago hung back a minute, as if he were waiting for his wife, before saying something.

"This is really a miracle, sweetheart. A real god damn miracle life is, _especially_ these days."

Beca had quickly gathered that he'd been talking to Chloe, from the kind kiss to her hair that he'd given along with a hand squeeze.

"I'll leave you women to it," he told Beca now, leaving another kiss on the corner of his wife's mouth before he moved to the doorway.

Now, as if by some sisterhood telepathy (Beca called _bullshit_ , but Chloe insisted it was a _totally real thing)_ all of the other Bellas left as well andit was just the two of them in the room, with baby Swanson, who, at the odd time, would smack her thin, little lips together in her sleep.

 _Now,_ she thought, _if only her little girl slept this soundly when she got home and through the night, that would be perfect._

"Spill it, Birdy," Beca stated and watched as Chloe fidgeted with the hospital blanket, roping it between her fingers, though she did smile a little bit at the nickname.

' _Birdy'_ had been a nickname given to Chloe by her father, when she was three years old and was infamous for jumping off of couches, beds, and other semi-bouncy surfaces, pretending, and when she'd been that young, _believing,_ that she could fly.

Of course, Chloe had never told any of this to her outright.

It had been a similar situation to when all of the girls found out Aubrey's nickname, also given to her by her dad. ' _Audge-Podge'_. (What was it with all of these daughter's getting nicknames from their fathers? She flashed back to _'Becky-Lou'_ with a subtle cringe).

Their sophomore year hood night party seemed like a popular day of the week for everyone to get entirely obliterated and spill all of their secrets; minus Beca, of course.

She was a locked box and the key had a long time ago been thrown somewhere far in the depths of a river in Georgia, so, she'll choose not to include any of _her_ drunken overshares, because, there wasn't any of those - _what? No, she didn't blow chunks all over her primary school classmates during the Christmas concert. Which was stupid and overrated, by the way –_ but with that said, she'd go crazy if her children weren't in theirs.

"For serious, babe, what's up?"

Beca asked her again, gently, and Chloe just kept staring at the baby but whether it was in emotional longing or something else closer to trepidation, she couldn't tell from her face.

"He wants babies _so bad_ , Becs. And I want to be the woman, the _wife_ , who gives them to him, but I don't know if I can, not like, physically or anything, I'm fine there, thank god, but just emotionally…I don't know if I'm ready. You know what I mean?"

"Why, though? You love kids – you love _my_ kids, and they love you just as much. And they adore their _Uncle 'Gago_ too. You know that. You two would be great parents – and so I ask again, _why?"_

Chloe sighed, stroking Ava's cheek, and the baby blinked up at her honorary aunt with searching, dark eyes. If she had eyebrows, they'd be furrowed too.

All of her kids had dark eyes like their dad, and Beca hoped with such a sudden and intense longing, that her hypothetical honorary niece or nephew would inherit their mother's coloring – her curly red hair and cerulean blue eyes.

If only so Beca could take comfort in the supposed recession of the gene – and how gorgeous blue eyes were on a baby; not that her babies weren't all gorgeous in their dark eyed, dark haired wonder, it's just she wished that at least one of her children had come out with her eye color.

"Well, for starters, your kids are dreamboats, Becs. Exhibit A," she said, referencing Ava in her arms.

Beca laughed. "For you, maybe. You should see them on a bad day."

In truth, her and Jesse's children were actually probably as close to dreamboats as kids could get. Their _'bad days'_ were few and far in between and were solely as a result of their mother's genetics in the game. Their transgressions were juvenile and for the most part always fixable with a stern warning or a minor punishment.

The twins hardly ever fought, and if they did, it was over something stupid, like which cult classic they were going to watch (on the downstairs TV, where their parents likely wouldn't find them). They'd gotten away with that one a few times too many, admittedly.

One time, Auntie Amy was watching them for the day, while Beca and Jesse went shopping for Christmas gifts, and five hours later, the both of them practically sleeping on their feet their parents walked into the downstairs rec-room, with a sleeping Michael in Jesse's arms, to find Amy sprawled across the floor.

She was playing some sort of game on her iPhone, and the twins were snuggled into her chest, intently watching _Slum Dog Millionaire_ with glassy eyes. It was way past their naptime, which, by the looks of things, Amy had never given them in the first place.

* * *

" _ **Patricia**_ _, what the hell are these kids doing?"_

 _Amy looked up, alarmed by the use of her given name and then looked over at the twins, who had run over to both of their parents, grabbing onto their legs in an eager greeting._

" _Hi, Mommy! Hi Daddy!"_

 _Beca stroked Molly's hair, and Jesse did the same with Anthony, and then, just as quickly, the two switched parents and Beca was hugging her son closer to her knees, a somewhat of a protective instinct, while Jesse held Molly in the same way._

" _Hey, Twinners," both Beca and Jesse murmured, in a hello much less enthusiastic than that of their children. They had to be calm, if there was any hope in them having a late nap before dinner._

" _They're watching a movie, Shawshank. Chill, okay?"_

 _She looked at the woman doubtfully and shook her head. "Do you happen to know which movie?"_

 _Amy turned to the TV and shrugged, looking back to Beca. "Uh…no…is it uh, not Twinners-friendly?"_

 _Jesse sighed from next to her. "No, Amy. It is by no means Twinners-friendly."_

 _Beca nodded along with her husband, all the while thinking about the other movies the twins could have found on that shelf. She actually took a minute to thank whoever was up there listening that it wasn't something even worse._

 _So, it wasn't_ _ **that**_ _bad, Beca reasoned later on, a few days later, after Amy had called to apologize, after looking up what_ _ **Slum Dog Millionaire**_ _was about._

 _Sure, the next day, both Molly and Anthony's response to just about anything was "if it for Rama and Allah, I have a mother" which prompted a range of reactions from everybody but soon, by the day's end, it had worn off and they were speaking once again like normal two-year olds._

* * *

"Seriously Chlo, did I ever tell you about the time Jess and I caught the twins watching _Slumdog Millionaire?"_ Beca asked now, with a smile.

"They were two and didn't know any better. They just wanted to watch a movie. That was one-hundred percent Amy's fault"

"Oh," Beca's smile faltered a little. "So, I did tell you."

Chloe laughed.

"Nice try, Bec. Face it. Molly and Anthony are little dreamboats. And so are your other two. What if my babies aren't as well behaved as yours? What if I have demon children? It's a possibility, you know, a redhead like me.

"And Chicago's been wanting to enlist again. For awhile now," she sniffled. "I think he's done waiting, Becs."

"Chlo, my kids are only turning out so good because they have Jesse as a father and a whole entire village raising them. Your kids will have that village too, babe. I promise. Even if they are Satan's spawn. But if Tia and Theo aren't, I'm sure you're fine," Chloe laughed, and Beca continued, "even if they _are_ , you'll have a village to help you. And Chicago. Even if he does enlist again, you'll find a way."

Beca grinned, putting her hand on Chloe's arm. "You're Chloe Beale. Nodes survivor. You've got this."

Chloe laughed and shook her head in what appeared to be disbelief, like _she did not just say that!_

"Thanks, Becs. I love you."

"I love you, too."

* * *

A couple days later, Beca was released from the hospital and she and baby Ava were able to go home.

Although she insisted she didn't need it – that she wasn't a senior citizen – Jesse all but forced her into a wheelchair and took her out of that hospital room and out the building's double doors, all while barely going faster than her grandmother.

"Jess, if you keep going at this rate, we won't even be home in time for dinner. And Aubrey's on her health kick right now, so the kids will most definitely not touch whatever it is she's making – do you want to starve our children, Swanson?"

Jesse shook his head and she sighed, relaxing against the back of the chair, while adjusting Ava in her arms.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry you were born into this. If your Daddy had his way all of the time, you and your sister wouldn't be dating until you were both on your death beds."

"Your Mommy's got a point there, Aves," Jesse laughed, leaning over the handles to kiss the top of her head. "But luckily you two have her to set me straight, because maybe you'll meet a boy like me."

Beca rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah. Because you're so great all of the time."

"Are you kidding me?" He laughed. "Our daughters would only be so lucky."

Beca chuckled despite herself along with him, even as she rolled her eyes. "Whatever, weirdo."

Finally, the three of them got situated in the car, and as they drove, she could tell that he was fighting the urge to laugh at her every time she looked into the backseat to check on their daughter.

"Bec –"

"I should've sat back there with her, Jess. Why did you convince me to sit up front with you? I Should be back there making sure she's comfortable and safe and…"

Before she herself even knew what she was doing, and how stupid it was – but stupidity took a day off where Mommy duties were concerned – Beca took off her seatbelt and started to climb over the center console.

"Woah, woah there, Momma Bear," Jesse said, pulling her back by the waist and into her seat, all while keeping one hand on the wheel and his eyes focused on the road.

"We did this with the twins, and then Michael, and now this little peanut," Jesse stared at their daughter with affection for a second, who was calmly sleeping in her car seat.

"Nobody was seriously injured. Not even a scratch. So just calm down. Don't get me wrong, I love this side of you," he nuzzled her neck and purred against her ear and she squirmed a little in response. "But you have to chill, Bec. At least until we get home."

"Deal," Beca grumbled begrudgingly, still settling for looking back at her way too often. She couldn't help herself.

Soon enough, yet not soon enough for her liking, they arrived home. "Finally," she sighed and got out of the car, anxious to get to her baby.

"Ah, ah, ah, my little war veteran," Jesse stopped her at the car door and opened it himself as he kissed her cheek. "You just gave birth less than twenty-four hours ago and are recovering from a particularly grisly c-section."

"Well, that's a little dramatic, don't you think?"

"You didn't see what I saw in there, Bec." He shuddered, and she sighed.

"Fine."

The three of them entered the house, Jesse holding the still-sleeping infant and Beca sulking a little behind him.

When they opened their front door, they came face to face with an entry way full of people.

There was Benji and Emily, who had matching, equally goofy grins on their faces; there was Aubrey, who was holding Tia's hand so tightly, it looked like it was about to lose all circulation, as the little girl was visibly fighting the urge to sprint towards them.

Auntie Beca and Uncle Jesse were apparently _'her favorite people on the planet' but_ that changed by the week, so Beca wanted to eat it up while she could.

"Hey, Tia-Bo-Bee-a, Banana-Fan-a Pho-phi-a." Beca grinned at her and her face lit up in response as she waved the hand that wasn't taken by her mother wildly at her.

"Hi Auntie-Beca-Bo-Mecca-Banana-Fan-a-pho-pheca! Hi Uncle Jesse!"

Jesse chuckled. "You're one silly girl, Tia Mia."

She beamed. "I'm gonna take that as a compliment."

And right then, Beca decided that Tia Emmeline Decker was every little bit like her mother. And she wasn't sure whether to be scared of that fact.

"Mommy! Daddy!" Molly jumped from her perch in Emily's arms, scaring her mother half to death, and ran towards her, hopping a little on her toes. Anthony, once he was let down by Benji, wasn't far behind, and scampered up to them like a little puppy. Damn, her son really was his father.

"Twinners!" Beca exclaimed, but at the same time careful not to wake the baby (if she could help it). She indulged in their hugs, breathing in the sporadic scent of pine on their skin. If these hooligans let her toddlers sit in that god awful oak tree in their backyard again, she'd make no promises to leave any survivors.

"Mama! Dada!" Michael cried in excitement, clinging onto her as she took him from Amy's arms, pointing at the baby as Ava remained blissfully unwitting. "Baby!"

"That's right, baby boy!" Beca smiled at him, and in response, he smiled back, a wet, lilting laugh bubbling up and over his lips.

She laughed too and gave him three smack-inducing kisses on the cheek, which made him go insane with happiness as he tangled his fingers in her hair.

"Becs!"

From the very back of the room near the stairs there was a disembodied voice, and then somebody emerged from their downstairs bathroom, and Beca took too long of a moment to register who that voice belonged to.

A rush of red and spun sugar told her all she needed to know as the person practically dive bombed her as they came in for a hug.

"Hey there, Speedy Gonzales" she said, almost staggering on her feet. "Watch it. Aca-child in my arms!"

"Sorry," she replied, and Beca noticed that she was nearly breathless.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Fine, fine. Amazing actually. No, _aca-_ amazing. Wanna know why?"

Just like with Amy, Beca never really wanted to " _know why"_ with Chloe either, mostly because their answers never placated her – they only ever made her fear and/or disgust and/or anger intensify.

Before she could answer, Chloe shoved something into her palm and closed it. Something plastic. Something a little sticky. She sighed. "I don't even want to know."

"Oh, trust me, Beca," Chicago said with a hint of a grin that he was clearly trying to hide. "You're going to want to know."

"Open your hand!" Chloe practically squealed, and Jesse now showed his own trepidation plain on his face, which did not help matters.

"On three," Aubrey told her, clearly sensing her discomfort from all the way over where she stood. It was crazy how she could do that.

"One…" Beca breathed out shakily, because the hype of this was huge now and she swore if it was something stupid like one of Theo's fake bugs, she would never talk to these nerds again. Ever.

"Two…"

"Wait," Cynthia Rose interjected from her spot over by the banister. "Is it on three or after three?"

There were collective groans, even from Beca, and as Stacy whined _"will we_ _ **ever**_ _get this right?"_ she smiled. Because even if it was the biggest, creepiest, crawliest, most realistic, fake bug, she would still love these awesome nerds. _Her_ awesome nerds.

She opened her palm. Then put her hand to her mouth.

"Okay, Beale. Your ring had better be bigger than mine," Jesse told the woman, who giggled behind her hand like a schoolgirl with a crush.

"Not a ring, Swanson. Besides, Beca and I already have something between us that you can't touch."

Jesse raised his eyebrows and although she knew what was coming – it always came back to this – Beca didn't interrupt. But he did.

"Barden University. The co-ed showers. Two thousand and ten."

With a smug, somewhat seductive smile, Chloe nodded.

Beca swore the woman talked about this moment to anyone who would listen, likely her old vet school classmates, with the type of fondness that's usually reserved for of the scandals of drunken college experimentation. And she'd let her.

Because it's whatever, and Chloe meant something to her, whether that's said with a sexual undertone or not.

Then, Chloe shook her head, just as Beca did the same thing, deciding, on the fly, to rattle her husband's cage a little.

"We'll always have our _dirty thirties_ babe," Beca said to her, making the hashtag symbol with her fingers and Chloe, in response, traced the inside of her mouth with her tongue and gave her an imperious wink.

"Oh my god you two are a bunch of tarts!" Amy exclaimed as both women's husbands swapped equally hurt, intrigued and confused glances, like two brothers who had just gotten their heart broken by the same girl.

"Okay, nerds, enough about that because Chloe's pregnant!" Beca said, loud enough to empower Amy's voice and change everyone's focus, including that of the children, who were all listening to this conversation with a bit of a detached ear.

"And if this is your pee I'm touching, let it be known that I am so, totally disgusted but I can't even be mad because you're having a _baby!_ _Chlo!"_

Beca laughed, unbelieving.

"So, when we had that conversation at the hospital – "

"I thought I might be pregnant, yeah," Chloe answered for her, accepting all of the hugs coming at her from left, right, and centre.

Beca was the last to hug her, which was ironic, but she let it slide. She breathed slowly into the crook of Chloe's warm shoulder, working up the courage to say what she'd wanted to since she saw the stick with two, identical, pink lines in her hand.

She looked up to meet the eyes of all the Bellas and their significant others and their respective children, who were all grinning at their backs, then, at her, from over Chloe's shoulder.

"Here's your village, Chlo. All around you. We're here."

In a non-verbal response, Chloe gave her a tight squeeze.

Beca grimaced. "Recovering from a c-section here."

She sighed, breathing out through her mouth to weather the intense pang that shot throughout her abdomen at the contact.

In an instant, she felt Jesse's hand on her lower back as she separated herself from the hug. Anthony and Molly joined their hands with hers and squeezed them, and Michael's hands returned to their usual spot, tangled in the hair _right at her scalp_.

Chloe smiled at her as Emily placed Ava gently back into her mommy's awaiting arms. Beca left a lingering kiss to the side of Ava's sweet, bald head to sooth her weepy murmurs and felt the rest of her family close in around her.

"And there's your village, Becs. It may be _Whoville,_ but it's yours. And I love my village to death, but I want _that_. I'm ready for that.

"Cindy Lou Who," Chloe poked Molly playfully in the side, "and all."

"It's pretty great. You'll love it, I promise. If Beca-Effin-Mitchell," she grinned at Amy, "can go from having zero family ideals to Jack Campbell, you can too."

Chloe just looked confused and Jesse did the eye rolling for her, which made her heart suddenly beat tenfold. _Since when was an eyeroll so sexy?_ She shook her head, chalking it up to leftover pregnancy hormones.

"Nicholas Cage? _Family Man?_ "

Beca felt Jesse kiss the top of her head and sighed at his touch.

"That was movie-cation – "

"Number forty-seven. Sophomore year. Basement of the Trebles house," she finished for him with a smile. "I remember."

"Dear god," Jesse said to her, clearly surprised. And she wanted to kick herself, until he said something else. "I love you _so_ _much,_ my Barden Bella."

"Right back at' cha, my aca-boy."

"Ah, ah." He kissed her temple. "That's aca- _man_ to you, _lover._ "

She snickered, then leaned over to whisper into his ear. "I'll make it up to you for that one, later. When all of Whoville is asleep."

"Ooh!" Chloe laughed, still in close proximity to the couple. "That sounds promising."

Jesse jokingly slugged her shoulder. "Thanks for the input, Beale."

"That's what I'm here for!"

Chloe's eyes were sparkling, Beca couldn't help but notice, as Chicago took her by the waist and pulled her into a kiss from an angle that would look every bit less glamorous if it weren't between a smoking hot marine and his leggy redhead.

As he dipped her, all the while keeping their mouths attached, Chloe giggled and Beca had a flash of envy, before it quickly dissipated as she looked into the eyes of her four children.

"I could still dip you like that, you know," Jesse whispered to her, and she grinned.

"I'd like to see you try, you original Swayze."

Her two toddlers put all of their weight into her sides and her two babies eyed her quizzically, while her husband's laugh wholly enveloped her; and each and every sensation of this one moment, between the five of them, was making her insides warm with pleasure. And she didn't even need to be kissed.

But Jesse thought differently, as he cupped her face with one hand and left a gentle, yet _serious_ kiss on her lips. And then she was _flying_. Just like Josie Gellar in the middle of that baseball field.

Movie-cation number fifty-two, junior year. The quad. She grinned at the memory, her mouth still against his, as he grinned, too.

In that moment, as cheesy and disgusting as it sounds, Beca knew that her and Jesse's movie would never have an ending, because he was _clearly_ a weirdo and the middleswere the best part.

 _Their_ middle was the best part. It was a blockbuster hit, a true cinematic classic, a movie-cation that would go _on, and on, and on, and on,_ just like that damn _Journey_ song.

" _The Aca-Amazing, Plus Every-Other-Adjective-In-The-Book Life of Jesseca and the Swanson Brat Pack."_ It was a working title, but she could deal with that.


	3. Chapter 3

_**I had this in my drive but I never updated due to lack of response for this story. Where are all my Jeca fans? I saw this other Jeca story just recently published with 33 reviews...not to sound whiny but where are all you people? :( Anyway, I thought I'd update because it's Christmas themed and this seems as perfect time as any. Seeing that other Jeca story reminded me of this so...here you go :)**_

* * *

Today was December 25th, 2027, and it was also the day that Ava Noelle Swanson, their last aca-child, their last aca- _baby_ , turned four years old. And Daddy cried. He cried real tears, real tears just like the day all of his aca-children celebrated their births, and all of their milestones, just like their youngest sister. And he'd keep crying, too, proudly and as manly as possible, until they're all thirty-five and have moved out of the house. He'd cry even harder when that happened. And it would only happen over his dead body.

 _Nineteen_ , Beca had interjected.

She moved out at nineteen, so did he, so why not them - _they'll have college, a life, and your baby girls will have boys and your baby boys will have girls, or maybe that'll be switched, but Jess,_ she sighed, _they'll have a life, a life of their own, without us, and -_ that was when Mommy's voice pinched too, _singing lame, predictable covers until, as our offspring, they take the acapella world by storm and we're forgotten. It's only a matter of time._

And then she sniffed and sniveled, clawing at the tears that fell without consent, and excused herself so that her babies - "they will always be my babies, my little aca-babies" _-_ didn't see her cry.

Of course, Anthony did though. He stopped her in her tracks and pushed his adorable, small body that was every bit boy and not with a manly bone – just the way he wanted it for the next forever, into her stomach, staring up at her with bold, inquisitive eyes.

"Mommy, why are you crying? You're sad."

Beca looked down at him then with a soft, soothing smile. She'd gotten so good at those over the years. It was like magic. When the kids were sick, scared, or upset, they could count on one of those smiles to make whatever it is, all go away. It was _inevitable._

With that smile coming to light on her face, alighting the pallor of her skin just like sunshine would the underbrush of the oak tree in the middle of their backyard, she pulled her son in closer to her, tighter to her.

"I'm a little sad Bubba, you're right. It's because you and your brother and your sisters, you're all growing up so fast. And honestly, baby boy, I really don't like it."

Anthony separated from her a bit so that he could look her, as best he could, the little shrimp that he still was, straight on. He looked very worried. Unsettled.

"Me, Molly, Michael and Ava will stop growing! If you don't like it, if it makes you sad, we'll stop. _Really,_ Mommy. We'll stop."

"Hey, speak for yourself. I'm nine years old. One more year and I get bumped a riser in choir. The older girls get to be in the back," Molly said, arms crossed, from where she stood over by the couch.

"I don't know about that my Little Prom Queen," Jesse said. "The taller girls are in the back so that they don't block the shorter ones. And unlucky for you, little girl, you got your Mommy's height."

Molly rolled her eyes at him and he forced himself not to laugh, hardening his mouth into a grim line. None of his children would get away with that. And not at nine years old for Christ sakes. Beca Mitchell's children might. But not his.

"Hey now, you know how I feel about the eye rolling, Molls."

"I know."

His daughter let out a loud sigh, which spoke volumes more drama than the eye roll did and suddenly, he wished he'd let that one go. Looking at her now, Molly Lincoln Swanson, the _Mischief_ to her brother's _Chaos,_ with her light brown hair that goes strawberry in the summer, and her dark eyes that, while they are pretty in their own right, do not distract from the angular set of her face – her cheekbones, her chin, the jaw that could already stop a breath, in both fear and admiration, making prints in snowy flesh.

Aside from the complexion, their oldest daughter, actually, their oldest _child_ by approximately thirty seconds, looked exactly like him. She boasted her Daddy's features proudly, most of the time, thanking people – mostly just her honorary aunts and uncles – when they acknowledged her in that way, saying things like how _cute_ she is or how _sweet and adorable._

Often, this inflated his ego, because if his daughter looked just like him and she was all of those things, then he had to be something close, right? _Handsome,_ maybe. When he brought this up to Beca one night after Bumper had just finished complimenting Molly, she nudged him, okay, more like _punched_ him, in the ribs and said: _"no. No, you know what, Swanson? You're an ugly son of a bitch. That's what you are. Egotistical, too. "_

 _"_ _Oh!"_ Bumper had raised his glass to that _"truly magnificent"_ burn and Donald had followed it up by mumbling _"you just got burned, dude"_ which ruined his pride more than it really should have. Especially when his wife clinked her glass with theirs, an evil little grin perched menacingly on her mouth, like a hawk ready to take flight in pursuit of it's prey, as she drank a sip of her wine – something called Boones Farm that to Jesse resembled something closer to a juice cocktail than actual alcohol. Which was disgusting. Just like his wife in that moment. _Absolutely terrible._

One thing Molly had never been though, was beautiful. Of course, to him, to her dad, she was every bit beautiful and then some. She was _gorgeous._ Sometimes, if he looks at her at just the right angle, in just the right light, with just the right expression, she even looks like the one, the only, Molly Kathleen Ringwald.

Her mom thinks she's beautiful too; from the moment she was born, Molly Lincoln Swanson was _perfect_ and _beautiful_ and _everything right and good in this world._

But to their own parents, to their friends, to their neighbors, to any unknown passersby on the street, she was never that. She could be _cute_ , no problem, _adorable_ , easy, _sweet,_ the little munchkin had it in the bag _._

But _beautiful,_ it seemed, she had to work for, and sometimes he hated himself for that. Hated that he wasn't beautiful, so that she could be, because some people can't see the inside, or don't look too closely, and that's where they lose out. Because every bit of Beca that's in Molly is on the inside. Her beautiful voice – their nine-year-old could carry a tune better than any other nine-year-old or famous person that he knew; her beautiful laugh, her fear of heights, her determination, her persistence, her love of anything sweet. It was _all beautiful._

There were times when he could feel that just himself and Beca knowing that, seeing that, wasn't enough. For her, or for anybody. And it sucked. It really did. So, he should've let the eye roll slide and he knew that in the moment, too, and watched her face fall just a little as that part of her that was her mother, a part of her that was, although obnoxious, _beautiful,_ got tucked away inside again.

"I'm four Daddy! Four years old!"

Jesse's focus moved from Molly to their youngest and the birthday girl, as she's fond of reminding everyone.

Miss Ava Noelle. Much like the holiday she was partly named for, Ava radiated this goodness and light about her that Beca would say over and over again was all him, something that he was careful not to confirm nor deny. He, just like his daughter, did have his moments. If he did say so himself.

She's in preschool now and is in the same class as Emily's little boy, Brandon, who was talkative as ever and honestly, just like his mother, _never shut up -_ that kid could talk for days about literally anything, anything at all, and at three, he's been surprisingly clear in his speech, if a little too fast and excitable. Again, just like his mother.

Ava however, a Swanson through and through that kid, was quiet and studious – as studious as an up and coming preschool graduate could possibly be. She had actually received a merit, which was really just a flimsy piece of paper with a metallic star printed onto it below her name in fancy, scrawling font, and the words _"most diligent worker."_ When Jesse had to explain what _'diligent'_ meant to her toddler brain, it made him feel so crazy with pride.

 _"_ _A'ta girl,"_ he'd praised her, kissing the mused hair right on the top of her head, the softest part. She'd smelled of strawberry shampoo, come to think of it, she always did, and it was with that realization that he made a mental note to ask Beca to get an extra bottle of that _no tears_ stuff that came in that fish bottle for their bathroom. _Oh, she'd have a cow._

If he smelled like that, she'd probably never kiss him again. Her favorite scent was _Irish Spring_ and so, because it was really the least he could do to accelerate her sex drive, he decided that instead, he'd pick up a jumbo-sized bottle on his way home from work tomorrow. The body wash too.

"Daddy, I'm four!"

With that exclamation, his focus was drawn away from his wife's sex drive and back to those little chubby cheeks that gleaned dimples reminiscent of the cheesy grin that hadn't left her face since she'd found out, along with her siblings, that Santa had come at six thirty this morning. It had doubled in size and in the cuteness factor, when she remembered that it was her birthday, too.

Damn, that smile. _Baby,_ he thought, shaking his head imperceptibly and smiling at her. _You're_ _going to kill me one day._ Beca wore the exact, literal carbon copy, of his daughter's smile on her own lips, her porcelain skin flushing with unspoken and uncontained emotion. _Damn it, Bec. Not you too. Do you want my heart to stop?_

"What was that, Jess?" Beca asked him, the smile fading just a little. "Are you okay? Please, oh god, _Christ Almighty,_ do not have a heart attack in this house, in front of our children."

 _Whoops._ He hadn't meant to say that out loud. He was about to explain himself before she laughed, the grumbling of her vocal cords an intense feeling as she hugged him close, her chest pressing into his abdomen.

He loved moments like these, moments when he was reminded of how stupidly endearing and enabling her height was to him. He has all the power but loses it in the same breath, when he feels her there, cheek against his ribcage.

"You cheeseball. You spout so much cheese out of that pretty mouth of yours you should be a mouse."

She broke apart from him, only smirking now. The smirk wasn't as nearly as satisfying as that smile, but it would do.

"Whatever. You love it."

"So, what if I do? And if you tell anyone that I'll have to cut out your tongue."

Her expression now, right at this second, was so failingly menacing that he had to laugh. She couldn't even pretend anymore. _Ha. Win._

"Ouch," Ava murmured from where she stood next to her Mommy, tiny little fingers, so pale and delicate like wisps of lace, attached to a tiny little palm which held tightly now onto Beca's hand, which welcomed it greedily, gratefully.

No matter if she would admit it or not, she wanted these children, all four of them, with him, with every part of her soul. He watched as she evolved from staring dumbfoundedly at a pregnancy test, which later gave her not one, but two babies, on the bathroom tile, to jumping for joy just over a year later, and then to him holding her high off of the ground in celebration, fake or not, because _four fucking kids was a crapload_ she all but grumbled into his shoulder and _fake it till you make it right?_

In the end, Beca Mitchell embraced motherhood more fully and more fondly than she had anything else in her lifetime. That was including marrying him and having sex on the desk, a rule which she absolutely delighted in breaking – that was the only way he could describe it, what with the way she giggled like an obstinate little prep school girl every time they finished, approximately twenty-three times.

Motherhood suited his wife like nothing else. She was _the_ Super Mom, she was like the Batman of Super Moms. To put it one way: _Kelly Ripa and her Electrolux fridge and freezer combo can suck my dick –_ Beca's actual, literal, word-for-word statement when he caught her awake at 3AM on a Monday morning; hair thrown up in a messy bun and sweatpants misshapen on her hips, frenziedly making cookies for the Twinners' bake sale, while ironing Ava's leotards for her afternoon ballet class and checking Michael's math homework because third grade is rough, and that boy cannot be trusted to do his homework on time.

That woman – _his woman –_ was a whirlwind. A force to be reckoned with in the world of motherhood. And he loved her for that _. A lot._ Sometimes, it even did a little something to _turn his crank, rev his engine_ …and all of the other euphemisms for a total hard-on that made Beca roll those adorable Bambi eyes at him.

The same way – and he was not exaggerating this – that she did on aca-initiation night when she took pity on his wasted ass and accepted his offer to get her a drink. It was this thing that she did that both made his heart beat tenfold and shit his pants, depending on the day, sometimes the hour, or even the minute.

His nine-year old daughter shared that very eyeroll and it made him very nervous. She had the potential to walk all over him now, and she had to have known that, because he could just picture Beca Mitchell at nine years old pulling her daughter's exact shit on her father. Poor guy. He had no chance.

And neither did Jesse, by the looks of it, because when it happened that first time, he was so taken aback, so riveted, that he gave Molly her doll back without a word, even though to earn it back, she was supposed to be finished cleaning her room, and that doll had been a distraction.

Instead, father and daughter stood at an impasse, in the middle of her little-girl room, with its baby pink walls and carpet so cluttered you couldn't see the floor, before the eyeroll struck and Jesse surrendered, handing her the doll back in silence and vowing to tell her mother about this little development.

Beca did nothing, by the way. Just laughed. Laughed until her stomach hurt. That was when he knew defeat was going to be the only option. Unfortunately.

Mitchell charm is a _powerful_ thing, an _alluring_ thing, a _spellbinding_ thing, and in the case of his Barden Bella, it was a straight up _seductive_ thing.

"Ouch, Daddy!" Ava said again, now pulling almost incessantly in that typical way that was all of their children, on his shirtsleeve.

All four of these aca-children pulled on this shirt – the burgundy one that Beca had gotten him for Christmas senior year of college. Jesse Swanson did not succumb to the trend of the dad-bod, not after one, or two, or four babies. And he was proud of that. Wore it like a flag in the summer time, tanned, toned and shirtless – Luke _'I'll have a cheeseburger'_ guy had nothing on him now.

He would admit though that he needed a new shirt. He loved this one because of the memories it held in its threads, but the sleeves have nearly become stretched beyond repair and so had the hem. The material of his shirt clearly proved no match for the stubborn nature of his children.

Jesse looked down, and Ava stood tall – this was said both tritely and ironically, leaning against his leg with an angel smile – her mother's angel smile – and he knew that whatever came out of her mouth, be it _'can I have a cookie?'_ or _'can I get a tattoo just like Mommy's?'_ he would be saying yes. _Yes, to it all. Yes, yes, yes, to whatever the hell you want because,_ _ **shit**_ _, you are_ _ **adorable**_ _._

"What's _ouch,_ Peanut?" Jesse was so distracted by that be all end all smile that he'd forgotten what he and Beca were even talking about just a minute ago. When that smile turned down at the corners in confusion, he could breathe again, but spoke too soon when her eyes focused, dark and the opposite of hateful, onto his own and he saw a glimmer in the corners of her irises. A shot of green.

He flashed back to the first time he ever saw that glimmer. He was nineteen. The sun had gone and so had his wits, about half an hour ago along with the four cups of warm beer now coursing through his veins, which didn't taste good or particularly horrible. It was an interesting enough taste to keep drinking without a second thought because that night, his goal at his first college party was to get _absolutely obliterated_. A fact that he would not be repeating to his children thirteen years in the future.

 _He saw a girl that he recognized, even as drunk as he was, he knew that he knew her. The dark hair and equally dark eyes made even darker by the layers of makeup, that was juxtaposed with skin fair like a Disney princess. It was a little jarring and he had to catch his breath as he watched her approach._

 _"_ _Beca Mitchell, do my eyes deceive me or are you a Barden Bella?"_ There came the glimmer.

 _There was the faintest glimmer of green right through the middle of her irises and for just a minute, he might have fallen in love, and suddenly, right before his very eyes, he was that poor souled Darrin and she, Samantha Stephens. It was eerie. Or maybe, he was just really_ _ **, really,**_ _drunk. Except, he passed the sobriety test with flying colors, his chest hot where she pushed her palm against it._

When he saw that glimmer in his daughter's eyes, he fell in love with her mother all over again, like he did in that moment seventeen years ago, and cared more deeply for his little girl than he ever thought was possible.

Ava shook her head, dark waves of hair flying every which way. "N'er mind."

The child sighed dramatically, walking over to the Christmas tree, still lit, but bare of presents that had littered its reindeer tree skirt and the surrounding carpet hours before, when it was still dark, and the tree had been brighter, enthralling, even, and their children were halfway down the stairs, leaning over the banister, with squeals coming from between their lips that could be heard around the world.

 _"_ _Merry Christmas my little chickadees,"_ Beca had whispered from behind them, the smooth bags curved under her eyes doing nothing to distract from the gleaming grin on her face.

Since having kids, Beca had become a morning person, an _early_ morning person at that, whether she liked it or not. And she hated it. In one seriously sleep-deprived, manic moment, when the twins were about three months old, she admitted with out-of-character candidness as she lost her voice to her tears, that she might want to kill them.

Of course, that feeling was gone the next morning in time for breakfast, after Jesse had coaxed her back to sleep with a back rub and a kiss to her neck, promising, voice muffled against her warm, milky skin that it would get better and eventually, Mayhem and Chaos would sleep through the night. He'd hoped.

Now, all the presents had been opened, all of the surprises no longer secrets shared between their parents, and the kids were restless. Both his and her parents weren't scheduled to arrive for another few hours yet and breakfast had already been eaten, scarfed down before the rest of the presents were torn apart at nearly break-neck speed. Christmas morning in the Swanson household lasted half an hour at the most.

It was exhausting.

"What are we gonna do now?" Anthony asked, and both Molly and Ava nodded, waiting expectantly on the balls of their feet, looking from one parent to the other.

"We could watch _A Christmas Story?"_ he offered, but there didn't look to be any takers.

"We watched that last night, Daddy. That's a Christmas Eve thing," Anthony said, shaking his head.

Of course, his son was right. That _was_ a Christmas Eve thing. It was a tradition that spanned more than a decade, starting with Barden University's most musically-inclined couple and a run-down movie theatre in Maine.

"We could watch _Elf_?" Molly suggested, shrugging her shoulders as if she didn't really care either way. "Buddy's cool. I like him."

"Buddy, Buddy, Buddy!" Ava echoed, beginning to slip and slide in sloppy pirouettes across the living room.

"Buddy's kinda annoying," Anthony grumbled but one look at his twin sister's pleading eyes and he caved. "But okay."

And Mayhem defeats Chaos once again, Jesse thought with a small smile. When they're teenagers and Molly insists that her brother be the designated driver, damn was his son in trouble. He was never going to have any fun, not if she could help it.

"Can we have popcorn?"

"Popcorn with M&M's and licorice?"

"Yeah!"

Jesse sighed and met Beca's eye and It looked like she agreed with his thought.

 _They_ were exhausting.

…

Once the day was done and their bellies were full, dessert had been had and conversation had come to a slowed lull, everybody tired and satisfied, - both sets of grandparents especially, having gotten fill of their grandkids and their own children, Jesse had decided to call it a night for his littlest aca-child.

"Alright, Peanut," he turned to Ava with a regretful smile, who sat perched on the edge of her chair and fidgeting with her cutlery, the tiny spoon that had a pink handle with purple hearts decorating it and _Ava_ written in swirly scrawl held tightly in her left fist as their only proud lefty in the family. "It's time for bed."

There was no arguing, thankfully, not tonight. He could see that her eyes were already beginning to fall closed not at their own volition and she didn't even try to cover up the yawn that stretched her mouth wide open. Their children didn't make it a habit to cover their yawns when they were awake, let alone when they were half-asleep at the kitchen table.

He chuckled a little and without saying anything else, just in case his little girl had it in her to refute her bedtime after all and he didn't want to give her that chance, Jesse stood up from the table and scooped her into his arms, her body falling weak and unceremoniously against his chest.

"Okay, Aves, say goodnight to – "he paused, looking around the table at the many people surrounding it. "everyone"

Ava's eyes fluttered, light and bleary with exhaustion, but she smiled. "G 'night."

"Goodnight, Ava, sweetheart," his mom said, followed by his dad who shared the exact same sentiment. "Sweet dreams."

"Goodnight, ladybug," Karen, Beca's mom, said warmly, using the same nickname Beca had given their youngest. It didn't seem like Beca minded sharing, and by the sweet smile that sloped Ava's dimpled cheeks, it didn't seem like she minded too much either.

"Are you okay to go upstairs with Daddy, Aves? Mommy will be up in a minute, okay?"

"Mhm," Ava murmured in response to Beca and Jesse gave his wife's shoulder a squeeze as their daughter's head of dark hair lulled against his shoulder.

He watched as she tuned back in to the conversation being had between his parents and her mother, bravely busting his dad's balls the way she'd been doing since junior year.

As he walked Ava up the stairs and to her bedroom, he thought about that day in their third year of college; he'd come home for spring break that year and brought her with. He took her to the _toitest_ bar – she'd rolled her eyes big time at that one – and they danced the only way two white, sexually-charged people knew how while drinking up a storm with stupid, flirtatious looks on their sweaty, shining faces.

That night, she overestimated – big time, at that – her tiny body's alcohol capacity, even though he'd told her it was probably a good idea to put a lid on it for the night and somehow, he was the sober one, dragging her adorably chatty, drunk little butt back to his parents' house.

When they got home, his parents weren't surprised – well his father wasn't, his mother, well, she had to pick up her slacked jaw off of the floor first before she could speak.

 _"_ _For Christ sakes, Jesse. How could you let the poor girl get like this?"_

 _Shit._

 _"_ _Listen, Mom. Uh – "_

 _"_ _Hey, Mrs. Swanson," Beca drawled before he could speak and suddenly she was struggling out of his grip that was around her waist and trying to hug her. "Actually, can I call you Mom? And Dad?" she asked, staring his dad directly in the eye with such intensity that he had to look away._

 _Then, she focused back on his mom, her gaze softer now as she looked from both of his parents to her hand. "You know, Mom, I'm gonna marry your son one day."_

 _He'd wanted to point out how semantically that sentence didn't make a ton of sense and sounded more than vaguely incestual but figured right now, with his girlfriend blabbering drunk and cooing at his mother, it wasn't the best time._

 _"_ _Uh, Bec, we should get you to bed now."_

 _It was like he wasn't even there at this point. She was staring at his dad again, who looked amused at her plaintive expression. "He hasn't asked yet, but for Christ sakes isn't it time?"_

 _He swore he saw his mother smile._

 _"_ _I mean," Beca continued, "we've been together like 3 years if you count the year we were only friends and honestly, I think I loved him then, too."_

 _Jesse's ear's perked up. This was new. He listened now, instead of trying in vain to pull her by the arm upstairs._

 _"_ _I think…" she paused._

 _It seemed as though she were in literal thought, not in the same way most people are when they use this preamble for stating a, sometimes unsolicited, opinion. No, she seemed deep in some wormhole of a thought and it took her to some other time, away from them, here in his parents' house._

 _"_ _I think…" she repeated, and this time he wished that she would just say it already._ The waiting game is no longer cute, Bec. _He never expected her to say what she did next in a billion years and the shock and surprise had to be clear on his face._

 _"_ _I think I've loved him since the day he called me beautiful for the first time."_

 _The confusion was on his mother and father's faces but not his. He knew exactly what she was talking about. And he'd explain but he was pretty confident she'd do that on her own._

 _"_ _We were in the station, stacking CD's like usual blah, blah, but I'd only known him about a week. That's the crazy part, you guys. But anyway, I was sorting, he was stacking, and then he looked at me. Stared at me. It was creepy. I didn't like the attention on me._

 _He asked me what my deal was. If I was one of those girls who – "_

 _She turned her face to him briefly. "What was it, Jess? 'Is dark and mysterious but then she takes off her glasses and that amazingly scary ear spike and you realize that she was beautiful, all along?'"_

 _He scoffed. "That was oddly verbatim."_

 _She shrugged. "It's what I remember. Anyway, I know he never said that I was beautiful outright." She was now looking at his parents again. "But I could see it. I could see in his face that – that he thought I was beautiful. And nobody had ever called me that. My idiot guy-friends were too big in the britches to compliment anyone but themselves, and even had one of them said it, it wouldn't be the same. Wouldn't be genuine."_

 _He was staring at her now, blinking slowly, wanting to take as much of her in with each blink of his eyes as possible. She still had that ear spike, the makeup too, was heavily applied and dark, yet, he still saw her. She was still beautiful in the entrance way of his parents' house, as every bit beautiful as she had been that day in that terribly lit studio._

 _That night, when she sobered up, they had quiet, subdued sex that was less like the sex people their age were used to and more like that of stable and sophisticated young adults. They were happy. They were in love. And they felt like they had forever on their side._

Jesse laid a nearly-asleep Ava down onto her bed and pulled the sheets and quilt up to her chin.

As he leaned over to whisper his goodnight and leave a kiss to her forehead, she opened her eyes and in less than a second they were face to face, making peering eye contact in the dark.

He couldn't think of how he'd screwed up his and Beca's relationship just short of three years later. How he royally fucked it up. As Beca would say. Not now. Not when he was looking into her eyes.

It was uncanny, really, the resemblance Beca and Ava shared. If Ava was just a shy 28 years older, he wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Honestly.

"Goodnight, Peanut. Mommy will be up in a minute, okay? I love you."

Ava reached out her hand to hug him closer to her and he hugged her as tightly as he could without endangering her small, little body. That was when he felt someone behind him in the doorway and then her voice filled up the entirety of the room.

"I'll take it from here. You go entertain everyone for a bit. I won't be long."

Jesse turned to smile at her after whispering into Ava's ear and standing up.

"Okay," he passed her in the doorway, he, going out, she, going in, and left a meeting kiss on her cheek.

Except he didn't go downstairs. He pressed himself against the adjacent wall and listened.

"Hey there, Ladybug," Beca cooed, and Ava responded "hi, Mommy. I'm four today, you know."

Beca laughed quietly. "Oh, I know. I think everybody on the entire continent knows. You sure told them good."

"I did!" Ava announced proudly, and another laugh came from Beca's mouth. "It's time to go to sleep now, okay?"

He could picture it now. Beca combing her hand through her daughter's hair in that way she does to all her children. Getting her fingers in deep to the scalp and starting from their forehead down. It worked for all four of them, putting them in this state of relaxation that could be brought on by not much else.

She would do it to him sometimes too, when there was stress at work preventing him from sleeping, and he wasn't shy to admit that he'd be asleep within minutes.

He could see Ava's eyes drooping, and eventually, she'd stop fighting to keep them open just to look at her Mommy a little while longer. A Mommy's girl she was, and Beca loved it. Of course, her mini-me was a Mommy's girl. It was the world's logic at work.

In a minute now she'd start to sing, light and soft, almost a whisper surrounding and breaking away at the last shred of consciousness their little girl has held onto so tightly.

 _Hold me close and hold me fast, this magic spell you cast, this is Le Vie En Rose…_

He listened to her continue the song until its end, even mouthed some of it. He knew the song too well, as the song she'd sang to all of their children, from in utero, throughout their babyhood, to now. It worked. It was tried and true from Day One and so it stuck.

Not to mention it complimented her voice perfectly, and every so often the Barden Bella she'd used to be, the Barden Bella she always would be, to him, would come out strong, and there would be at least two more renditions, even if their children were asleep, mixed in with _Holding Out for A Hero._

The arrangement was made on the fly when the twins were just shy of four months and _wouldn't sleep for shit_ – her words. It had such a calming effect, it was crazy. She said it had something to do with the downbeats or the baseline or, hell, he had no idea what she was talking about, but whatever it was, they were both so, incredibly thankful for it.

 _"_ _This is…Le…Vie…En…Rose…"_

When he heard footsteps leaving Ava's room, he tried and failed to look nonchalant. She caught him in the act. She always caught him.

"Hey there, nerd. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be downstairs, entertaining our family, like I told you to?"

The way she said this and the reproachful gleam in her eye made it clear that she knew exactly what he was doing still outside of their daughter's bedroom. Even as she was fixing him with that 'don't bullshit me' look that was so classic Beca Mitchell, he wasn't even phased. He hardly was, anymore. Except when his mother-in-law joined in - like mother like daughter - it got a little scary then. He could barely make himself imagine Ava as a teenager. Or Molly. The mental image of three generations of Mitchell, all giving him, just one man, the 'don't bullshit me' stare, was enough to give him nightmares. Still, it didn't overshadow his euphoria in hearing her say 'our family' and it was the same euphoric feeling he had at twenty-two, when it slipped out after one too many rum and eggnogs. _'Our family is the best, aren't they, babe?'_ She'd only met his parents one other time before. But hell if he minded sharing.

"Sorry, Bec. But your voice, my Barden Bella, it gets me every damn time..."

Beca smirked, all but shoving her knee between his to force his legs apart. "Really now...?"

He knew what she was hinting at. Even if she hadn't started trailing lusty kisses across his collarbone. He shook his head, entrapping her head closer in the crook of his shoulder and kissing the cartilage of her ear. No biting. They couldn't start something they weren't allowed to finish. Not tonight. He had to go back downstairs and be _not_ hot and bothered in front of his parents and in-laws, not to mention their three other children.

"Bec, hold on, we can't do this. And I didn't even mean like that."

She pulled away from him and stared at him quizzically. "You didn't?"

Jesse laughed. "Not this time, no. It made me think about how incredible you are. What an amazing Mommy you are. Nobody can get our kids to sleep like you do."

"Not even Fat Amy?"

He gave her a look. "Do the kids even sleep when she watches them?"

She shrugged with a grin. "That's debatable. Why do we let her watch our kids overnight again?"

"She's your best friend. Beats me. Ask yourself that."

Beca shook her head. "I gotta make a call tomorrow."

He laughed again and hugged her close. He could feel her laughter against his chest. It intermingled with his quickening heart rate. It's like they were still in college. She wasn't allowed to do this to him anymore. He decided to make that decision then and there. It would make his life a lot easier. He'd stop breaking out in a sweat during meetings, every time he heard her voice on the phone, carrying an accent that had him just knowing that she was on their bed, the sheets pulled back, naked and alone. One particular instance of this lead to Miss Ava. She was their oopsie baby. Their oopsie baby who he couldn't imagine his life without, her little chest rising and falling in slow, sleepy beats, right now, behind that door.

He held onto his wife tighter in his arms, looking down at her. "You're the best mother to our four, beautiful, loved, aca-children. I couldn't ask for anybody better. They love you so much. And so do I, my Barden Bella."

She smiled softly and without letting her say anything, he pressed a kiss to her mouth. She reciprocated for a few seconds before once again pulling away from him. "Thanks for saying all that. And if it means anything, you're the greatest father the world has ever known, my aca-boy."

Jesse grinned, tears in his eyes as he kissed her again, leaning them against the banister at the top of the stairs, hoping, like him, she'd sink into it. She did. This time, he pulled away and intertwined their hands.

"An aca-boy and an aca-girl, who would have saw it coming?"

"I did," she smiled at him, halfway down the stairs. "It was inevitable."


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note: Hey! So, I was looking back on this story and saw the reviews and that someone wanted me to do a reconciliation one-shot - I had wanted to write one about the two of them getting back together after their break up back when I was invested in writing this story, but never really came back to it until now.**_

 _ **So, to that one person, if you're still reading or waiting for it, here it is and sorry it took so long and to anyone else who has an active presence in this dying (dead?) fandom/couple – here you go!**_

 _ **This takes place directly after the third movie ends.**_

* * *

"Bec?"

Beca nearly whipped around. She saw Chloe and the smoking hot marine in that same passionate lip-lock they'd been in for however long now – _Jesus dude, don't you guys like, I don't know, need to breathe? –_ she thought, admittedly a little bitter because damn did she miss getting kissed like that.

The only person who ever made her feel all that stupid, cliché, girly shit – like when her feet don't touch the ground and her fingers tingle as they touch his face, his cheeks, his jaw, his chest, was him.

Honestly, the day after they broke up, she realized something. She also realized that she had too much pride and lived solely to keep it intact, and for that reason, her realization, that this man, this stupid, annoying, cheesy, amazing, sweet, loving asshole was her great _can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, world series kind of love_.

But, as she mentioned before, her pride got in the way of that. And then by the time she'd gotten over it, was ready to grovel at his feet, he had met someone else. Figures.

"Bec."

There was that voice again. Less of a question. It sounded so much like that voice, _his_ voice, that she nearly shivered. She touched Theo's shoulder gently.

"Hey, did you – "

He shook his head. "Nope. Wasn't me."

Gesturing to a little ways ahead of them, he kind of smiled. It seemed like he was making eye contact with someone, not someone she could see, anyways. Weirdo.

"Hey, who are you – "

Suddenly, she saw it. Him. She saw him. He was giving her this look and his hands were splayed palm up in front of him. He looked the same. But different. The same, but different. Yeah.

"Bec, are you kidding me? Who else would it be? I'm the only other person to call you that, other than your dad, and what would your dad be doing here? Not that I keep up with your family's whereabouts or anything, but he's in Montecito for the weekend. Or yours. I clearly don't keep up with yours, either."

He smirked at her.

He seemed older, more mature, there was a five-o-clock shadow a little more than friendly with his jaw and his shoulders were broader, more muscular. It wasn't something she was ready to complain about, and another thing that she was most definetly not ready for was how her body was going to react to seeing him again.

Her brain had quit the second she saw him, but the rest of her was living for him to do something, anything – put his hand on her shoulder, her arm, her – _holy Christ_ he was so close to her, and there was his hand, reaching gingerly, carefully, to rest on her face. _Fuck. Me. Up. Hey, Swanson? It's just like old times, isn't it?_

It's what she wanted to say. Instead, she reached out her hand and rested it on his cheek, blinked slowly, but not seductively, yet anyways, up at him. Words were not her friend right now. She swallowed. Her throat was too dry.

"Jess…"

"Bec…" he said back, in the same tone she was using. Quiet. Soft. Reverent. "Bec, I miss you."

She laughed. Uh oh. Here it comes. Mushy moments were so not her thing. And so, she compensates, the other way.

"Isn't this your big moment? Think long and hard about what you're going to say here, Swanson. You've lived for this. The college kid you were is in the wings, hoping you won't choke. Lay it on me, baby. Your big, romantic speech in the last five minutes that makes me take you back. I'm waiting."

She acts like a dick. Or, well, she tries to flirt but a lot of the time, as Jesse has told her, she usually just sounds like a dick.

He just stared at her. For far too long. It was getting creepy. It was like she had died and then come back to life and he just could _not fucking_ believe it.

And then, he kissed her. He folded her in his arms, and she felt her feet leave the ground – actually though, because as much as she hates to admit it, she's really tiny and it happens a lot – but this time, it also felt a lot like a fantasy. Bleh. She said it.

She grinned into his mouth as their tongues met. But she didn't regret it.

"Okay, I knew it! I knew the jack hole had something big planned and he was just waiting for the right moment to strike! Respect, Jesse boy. Respect."

That was Amy.

"Woah, what the heck is going on here!?"

That was Chloe. She was probably looking at the two of them with this mix of a weird fascination and surprise.

That girl loved a good kiss. And maybe she was a little jealous. Of Jesse. Obviously. Beca wasn't blind, and yeah, she was also one hot piece of ass. Anybody would be lucky to have her.

But right now, she gripped tighter onto Jesse's shoulders, nobody else could.

"I think I still love you," she whispered to him when they finally broke apart.

He rose his eyebrow with a smile. "Oh yeah?" He lifted her chin and leaned in to kiss her again. But he stopped when their lips were just shy of touching. "Well, I _know_ that I still love you."

When they kissed again, she sunk into it and let herself become disgusting mush in his hands as he held her face, so gentle and cautious that he was practically _cradling_ it – ugh. But damn her because it felt _so good._

"Wait," she cut him off before he could talk, but by the way he was coming towards her again it was probably safe to say that he wasn't planning on doing much talking. She placed a hand against his chest, stopping him. "Is it too late to change my previous answer?"

He grinned at her and it was so genuine and so wholesome and pure that it reminded her of Benji of all people and it made her heart twist, but then he winked, and he was all Jesse again. And her heart basically exploded into a thousand, tiny pieces. But she was happy. _So happy._ Fuckin A.

"Beca Mitchell…"

For a startling moment, she thought he was going to propose. Or say no. Sure, that was an option too. It was too big of a pause. Too long. It was practically ten centimetres dilated. _Pregnant pause._ She was sure he'd laugh at that one, later. If he didn't break her heart, first, obviously.

"It's never too late."

From somewhere around their vicinity, there was clapping, and some whistling, and even before Amy yelled ' _go Shawshank – you get your man!_ – she'd known the source of it. The woman lived to embarrass the shit out of her.

Beca looked up at Jesse again. She saw the love there. It was so bright, so strong and so obvious in every sense of the word, that she knew that the love he had for her, it had never gone away in the first place.

And she was certain, absolutely certain, certain like she hadn't been about anything in her life for a long, _fucking_ time, that the look in her eyes was the same. Because she never stopped loving him either. And she never would. That was something she could take solace in for the rest of her life.


End file.
